Denis Santachiara

Denis Santachiara (1950-) is an important Italian designer with a highly recognizable stylistic signature: he always places the performance of the product at the center of his projects, which is designed to interact with its user almost as if it were a game. In the 1980s, he was the initiator of the design movement he defined as “techno-poetic neo-design”, in which new technological discoveries and small but ingenious mechanical inventions are used to give everyday objects a touch of wonder and magic, endowing them with unexpected behaviors. A self-taught genius, he began his career in his youth working on the design of supercars in the Modena automotive district, not far from his homeland, before moving on to the visual arts sector, which also led him to exhibit at the Venice Biennale in 1980. He achieved great fame through the 1984 exhibition “La Neomerce. The design of invention and artificial ecstasy”, self-produced and presented at the Triennale in Milan and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. The playful nature of his inspiration and his passion for surprises led him to work a lot in the field of transformable furniture, produced mainly by the brand Domodinamica (founded by himself in 1989 together with Cesare Castelli) and by the Brianza-based Campeggi, among the leading companies in the sector. Among the numerous brands with which he has collaborated in the past, we also note Baleri Italia, De Padova, Foscarini, Magis, Bonaldo, La Murrina and many others. Continuously guided by his passion for new technologies, in 2014 he founded Cyrcus, a “digital design on demand” platform in which the creations of different designers are produced at the time of order by the end customer through innovative 3D printing processes.