NEFERTITI

Nefertiti was first presented for the first time in 2022 at the Assabone space on the occasion of the Salone del Mobile di Milano. This design is the result of a dialectic between various strategies and references that initially gave the work the title "When Donald met Jimmy, then Aldo came over". The name-dropping, chosen to enshrine a sophisticated semiotic game, was then replaced by the more synthetic "Nefertiti".

Nefertiti is conceived as a flexible modular element that can be assembled in various ways (array, totem, walls, shelf, etc.) or used as a freestanding object. Magnetic devices are in fact positioned on the top, back and bottom of the lighting element. A steel plate in the same colour as the lamp also allows an appliqué solution.
The interplay between rigorous geometry and playful colour, the unsettling reflection of the lamp and its space on the 45 degree mirrored panel make Nefertiti a mysterious object open to multiple interpretations.
Despite its bold appearance, Nefertiti is made of folded/bonded aluminium, which gives the design a great lightness and an exceptional sharpness to a geometry that would otherwise be impossible to achieve.

Marco Zelli is an architect and designer based in Zurich, Switzerland.
His work explores the dialectic between the permanent and the transitory, deploying different registers, from the ironic to the operational, and approaching different scales of the project, from architecture to design. He has worked in some of the most prestigious offices in Portugal, Japan and Switzerland, and in 2020 he established his own practice. He collaborates with several institutions such as the Trienal de Lisboa, the Swiss Architecture Museum and the Mies Van der Rohe Foundation. Currently he teaches at the ETH.