“Do you think one is willing to cross conventional boundary lines when their objectives that lies beyond is clear?”
Border crossing is actually easier tackled when what lies beyond is relatively unknown, when it’s not all that clear and predictable. For example, who would ever want to go to London to work as a kitchen-helper if it were clear from the start how miserable and menial the days that lie ahead can be, days of having to pluck chicken clean in the company, lets say, of sweaty Sevillians or Greeks?

Yet there are stacks of kids all over southern Europe who daydream of a British summer, of going for a ride on a red double-decker. And there’s no better reason for wanting to do it than the fact that the border is there and you just can’t wait to get across it, to look back over your shoulder at those left behind and make a rude gesture, to be done with all the wingtrimming rules and regulations back home. Wings can give the thrill of flight but only when used to overcome a prohibition, a restriction, a border, a boundary line that was always there, coldly staring back at you and growing more unbearable day by day, and now it’s finally left behind. Little does it matter what it’s like on the other side. You’re there and that’s already a reward in itself.
It’s a life-booster, a taste of something new and flavoursome:-for a few days at least.

COME LOOSE YOUR DOGS
He walks through the city fighting mutely against the March cold, he’s tall and thin, with wide cheekbones and deep-set eyes,people stop to look at him,he’s handsome and knows it,his name is Elias and at eighteen he fled from an island in the South and, today, his father called him for the first time in years,after a century of silence between them, and hatred from the boy for that man who one September evening, wounded him forever, he fled from a land of sunshine and now he battles with seven million souls in a metropolis-world.

He’s been to see a Mexican film in the little cinema at the Angel, a story of dogs and betting and life which scratches and makes you bleed, a story of people as desperate as he was when he arrived here, in a dirty wicked city the likes of which he’d never seen before, nor imagined -You can’t catch me – he says to his father in his thoughts – I’m not yours any more, I’m nobody’s – he’s twenty-three and it seems a lot to him, he’s got a weekend job and a bed-sit on the border between the bohemian quarter and the tower block suburbs bursting with Turkish and Indian and Pakistani families…

The answer he gives to the question “DO DESIGNERS CREATE OPPORTUNITIES TO EXPERIENCE DAILY LIFE IN A DIFFERENT WAY?” is the first of a series of clear and only hypothesis is to refrain from working at projects. Admittedly, I accept requests from manufacturers, albeit maintaining a certain supervising role to avoid drifting into the pure search for attractive shapes, into meaningless and polluting styling.
My role is “similar to that of a trade unionist who realistically negotiates that which is negotiable”. I pay great attention to the entire production cycle, trying to influence some of the choices determining the quality of the product. I am on the factory’s side, not the shop’s. Producers heed to the needs of all those who are involved in the productive process, traders need only to sell! Therefore, the quality of a project goes beyond the reasons of reciprocity between shape and function: quality is the sum of all process related implications. In an attempt to make ideas more understandable, if a product is the result of a group of inexorable clarifications.
“I do not intend to pollute the world persons collaborating together, belonging to the entire productive process, where every individual plays a given role, they will all “feel the product”, understanding its complex reasons.
Funnily enough, a “good” project, a quality project, is the one that changes people’s habits, unfortunately good projects have often been commercial failures. Thus, one could gather that people strongly resist changing their habits. From the moment design became a part of marketing, values were with further useless information… the disrupted as a consequence.
The very idea of “commodity” should be reconsidered from a new viewpoint, I’m not blaming any specific object, I simply do not accept the logic whereby a philosopher should write a book a year or a designer should continuously design objects that will generate new trends. This can only produce two very bad results: on the one hand, it turns ideas into commodities, while on the other it increases the number of dump piles in the world…”.

“ABITARE IL TEMPO” in Verona is yet another “opportunity” to which Cappellini is one of the main actors/authors. In the latest edition of this event, Cappellini fostered an exhibition/conference on “Strategic Communication”.

IS “CREATING OPPORTUNITIES” A SYNONYM OF “STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION” TO YOU?
“Creating Opportunities” is an extremely important part of strategic communication projects, especially as it manages to make the corporate creed thoroughly and clearly public.

IN THE ENCOUNTER “OPPORTUNITIES”, DOES SOME SORT OF LONG-TERM “CIVIL AND CULTURAL” VALUE EXIST?
There is certainly a longer-term civil and cultural value that goes beyond the communication strategies of single companies. In such occasions, I fundamentally believe in the confrontation of various company projects and the different ways in which the leading companies publicise their corporate notions. These opportunities are extremely important for companies so that they can continuously question themselves.

WHAT TYPE OF CIVIL RESPONSIBILITY DO DESIGN AND COMMUNICATION COMPANIES HAVE?
Design and communication companies have a great civil responsibility towards the consumer and I feel that, for those who do not limit themselves in simply manufacturing good products but go on to deal with more complex projects, then this is having a proper corporate attitude. Therefore, being not only a good producer but also a company concerned with social and civil issues is what really makes the difference and greatly effects the world of consumption – in its attempt to improve it.

But when I actually listen, and when listening becomes a tool necessary for a job in which you approach people and situations in order to create change, I notice that it is a skill that varies over time, expressed by a subjective intention or created by the circumstances. Part of it comes from within, while part of it you suddenly find next to you, almost by chance. Listening is a travel companion.

On the other hand, you really listen when you meet someone who wants or needs to be listened to, or in order to find something that might be important and seems to have been missed.

Listening, an unreliable companion, has accustomed me to perceiving a company in terms of history and geography.

I quickly realised that I found it fascinating (and still do) to listen to the stories of individuals and groups. Colourful tales are transformed into legends that represent a social event or a moment in the evolution of a company or other organisation. Narration gives a linear order to the sequence of events, and unlike reality it has the appeal of cohesion. It tells of forces moving in what, with hindsight, seems to be a well-defined direction. It helps to simplify and give meaning.

But extended opportunities for listening open up another dimension that to me is even richer, the dimension that gives you a glimpse of  organisational landscapes characterised by diverse voices, motives and a multitude of trajectories, signs often hidden by the emerging story,  territories whose logic and vibrancy can perilously unbalance the system but can also create the conditions for positive change.

In this sense, taking the time to listen allows me to tap into the complexity, change-related tensions and the abundance of knowledge which exists in organisations, in order to bring effective procedures and projects to life.

But it also brings me closer to a fundamental aspect of corporate relations, when they are not merely based on power and hierarchy: mutual recognition. This is a dimension that will emerge if you accept the fact that listening has a certain element of gratuitousness. It asks you to give up your time and yourself without constantly thinking of the ends to be achieved. This way, by dedicating space to other people, you can build substantial relationships, understand and recognise others’ experiences, individual and collective identities. It is also a way to enable the listener to engage and achieve recognition in his own right.

“I can resist everything except temptations”. How does it feel to be a temptation?
I must say that I don’t dislike the idea of being a devil that tempts people, since the quotation is taken from Oscar Wilde who was one of the most brilliant minds of Western philosophy. Of course, in the Western world chocolate represents sin, the dream of finding paradise lost – just to remain in the literary sphere! – a golden age where senses, pleasure, flesh and mind merge into a sin-free dimension. To us Westerners, chocolate is a cultural, intellectual experience, it is an idea. I like the idea – if you say so – of representing “temptation” in this field!

Ours is the society of quantity; how many of us can really appreciate quality?
Today there is a strong flattening of tastes, a homogenisation of the palate to a standard mediocre flavour. Our product has a strong, decisive character, so it may happen that a person who isn’t used to perceiving a wide range of flavours doesn’t even recognise it as chocolate. Basically, those who are used to the standardised “Easter egg” flavour, where all you can taste is the sweetness and often also a bit of carton, might find our chocolate to be too strong. We are in any case deeply engaged in educating people to appreciate flavour diversity.

Where’s the breakeven between pleasure and addiction?
One thing’s for sure: a person who normally stuffs himself with food wouldn’t be able to eat a great amount of our dark chocolate: it’s too strong and elaborate. Actually, it is the first bites that produce greatest satisfaction, a few instants of absolute pleasure. Only a few bites, and then it becomes pointless, you lose the perception and with it, the pleasure. As a matter of fact, we’ve named our latest production “meditation pralines”!

There has been a lot of talk about reducing the minimum dose of cocoa, increasing the percentage of additives, European legislation; to what extent does all of this affect Amedei products? Opportunities or hindrances?
It affects our work only very slightly. If we were to concentrate only on following the rules, we would never achieve our goal, i.e. the dream of producing something superior. Of course, if you’re faced with the problem of limiting your costs or preserving your products for long periods, then it helps quite a bit to play with the percentages of additives and cocoa. The point is that the more you depart from the rules, the higher the risk of producing something that has practically nothing to do with chocolate.

What is your relation with cocoa producers?
We are directly in contact with cocoa growers, to whom we guarantee a very good purchasing price (even five times higher than the international market price) in exchange for high quality crop, something we absolutely cannot do without. Unfortunately, however, an increasing number of cocoa growers are flattening their crop quality to meet the lower standards required by major buyers who need only great quantities of low quality crop at extremely reduced costs. We do not belong to that group of producers, there is still too much confusion.

How does a company based on passion manage?
For example, when we designed our packaging, every expert we turned to for advice said that our idea was totally wrong, that it went against the trends, that it conveyed the wrong perception. But we stubbornly continued along our own path, the path of passion. It was a great success.

Who selects and decides the flavour of Amedei chocolates?
The whole family joins in, but I must admit that my sister is the one mostly involved in the testing phase and she’s also the one suggesting a lot of tricks and hints that are fundamental to field agronomic research activities and strategies.
In any case, we have trained some “company palates” for continuous comparison purposes but mainly to receive constructive judgements about the products that come out of the Amedei laboratories. We certainly do not follow the market research trend. It is too complicated and, to be frank – let me repeat this – the Italian market and consumers are still not “trained” enough to judge chocolate which is no more nor less elusive than wine, where you have the vineyard and the cellar and where there are different flavours, tannins, perfumes, aftertastes, cru and cuvée, wines made from different types of grapes or from single vines, autochthonous vines, clone selections… We hope to make the market grow, and therefore no longer be so lonely!

Town planning is the language of the city. To study town planning is to study the language that shapes the city. Yet there is no relationship between the frenetic diversity of the hordes of colourful people all crossing St. Mark’s Square, and the same number of people gathered attentively in Siena’s Piazza del Campo for the Palio. They are two different, outwardly similar mechanisms in the game of numbers. There is nothing in common between the growth of new cities and historic ones or the fate of Europe and that of Asia.

On the other hand, many electronics companies share the deplorable conviction that the same object can be placed anywhere, you can implant the same concept of transport anywhere, that energy distribution can be identical anywhere and that cities can spring up anywhere: this isn’t true. Cities represent social classes, historic density… some of them have grown out of order, some out of chaos; some have been planned, others happened by chance. The cities of tomorrow will still follow the same course: some will be casual, others planned. Town planning schemes are being stripped down to the roots and re-examined. As Braggi says, a city must first and foremost offer opportunities. Perhaps the real, living city of tomorrow will be one that offers opportunities.

Opportunities are related to the quality of the land .. but then we aren’t at all sure about that. Cities with incredible land potential don’t offer opportunities. On the other hand, cities which are totally fragmented can offer them. What does the chaotic development of Shanghai have to do with the articulate, rational growth of Basle? It is true that one has 150,000 inhabitants and the other has 30 million (or perhaps 20) but is the growth of a city a question of numbers or not? Are giant aggregations necessary or are they just fortuitous events, where there was no social or land planning?

These are the issues facing cities. It is wrong to think that talking about cities is like talking about dogs. Even here, there are lots of possibilities: there’s a huge difference between a Basset hound and a bulldog.

The difference between a bulldog and an great dane is even greater. Dogs are all different from each other, but they can reproduce to create mongrels. Cities can’t copulate, because they can’t create mongrels. Cities are authentic. Each one is the product of a fully defined ethnic and human culture.

But, for all this, India is changing. For as we, in India, succumb to the most recent waves of globalisation, as we increasingly adopt Western-style jobs and working styles and ways of life, we automatically also inherit the values therein – and in the West – the individual is supreme. Indians therefore are increasingly forced to choose. Does one spend more time at home, taking care of ageing parents and family matters and the problems of distant relatives – or does one make success of oneself professionally by working late hours and travelling endlessly and dedicating yourself to one’s job? Does one bring up one’s children to compete or to sacrifice? If one earns some money, does one continue to live simply, as the older values suggest, or does one splash out and spend in a capitalist, consumerist way? If you
are a working woman, the choices become even more severe: the pressure of being a dutiful daughter or a daughter in law, competing with the opportunities ad stresses of the workplace.
And sure, I recognise myself in this as well.

What did you learn about yourself writing this book?
I have always written, ever since I was a child. This book, which was my first, showed me the joys of giving myself completely over to my writing. While I was working on it, I gave up all other jobs, wrote from 4 am till sometimes late at night, to the point sometimes when my health suffered – but my spirit never felt better. Writing, I discovered, is one of the greatest joys of my life: creative, emotional, spiritual.

In which way being away helped you in seeing Bangalore reality better?
Stepping away from a home environment is the most wonderful way of gaining perspective on what one has left behind. Growing up in Bangalore, spending a few years in America, and returning to Bangalore again gave me the opportunity to observe with the knowledge of the insider and the dispassion of the outsider – and that is a wonderful gift for a writer.

Your novel is also set in Bangalore, the new Paradise of Informatics. Do you feel this city is in any way a mirror of India’s future?
Yes, very much so. Bangalore is a city of extraordinary potential – but to achieve that potential, it has to sort through a great many problems, of infrastructure, overcrowding, etc. These echo the opportunities and problems faced by the country as a whole.

You told about the need to read about the real Magic of Everyday Life. What is the essence of this magic in India nowadays? Is your novel focused on it?
Literature, like any art, is a way of understanding and celebrating the human experience, and Home, India, is not an easy place to understand – especially when it is, on the one hand, so ancient, and on the other, so full of change. But in addition to capturing the clash of ancient and modern, my novel goes further to explore what happens to a society when prosperity starts to arrive rapidly in its midst, the social upheavals that can result, the pace of change further accelerated, without necessarily giving the participants time to fully comprehend the full nature of the change that is taking place around them and within them.

Interview by Lilia Ambrosi