Piero Lissoni on Welcoming Risk, Taking a ‘Humanistic’ Approach to Design, and Finding Inspiration

Piero Lissoni is a design Renaissance man, and the many companies he has started under his namesake firm Lissoni & Partners encapsulate his varied professional interests. There’s Lissoni Casal Ribeiro, dedicated to the firm’s architectural endeavors, including master plans and landscape design; Lissoni Associati, where the firm’s interior design, product design, and art direction happen; and Lissoni Graphx, which tackles graphic design, visual communication, and brand identity projects. Lissoni calls this a “humanistic approach,” tying the firm’s work to a quest for overall perfection. 

Lissoni’s impact on contemporary design cannot be understated. He is the creative director for eight lines, including B&B Italia, Boffi, and Living Divani, and he has worked alongside international brands, including Flos, Kartell, and Knoll. Lissoni has recently been at work on The Ritz-Carlton Residences, Miami Beach, for which the firm reimagined the 1925-built former King Cole Hotel as 111 luxury condos with 15 single-family villas, and the Monaco Yacht Club & Residences, where the firm led the interior design.

In Miami, you also worked on the Monaco Yacht Club & Residences. Do you have a favorite element of the design for that project?

When you design something, you need to take some risks. Those risks are the combination of pieces from contemporary art and design, pieces from the United States, Europe, Scandinavia, Italy, Japan, China, Africa. You shake everything together, and out comes the new Monaco Yacht Club & Residences. That’s the challenge: the capacity to mix and match many different aspects and not be fake-contemporary or fake-modernist. 

Elegance is a quality of risk. Without risks, it’s impossible to be elegant. We tried to put inside both The Ritz-Carlton Residences, Miami Beach, and Monaco Yacht Club & Residences the same attitude of elegance. When you design something like this, you’re designing a special space for a community, and you need to decide which kind of community will live inside. I like the idea of working to present something for that community, not for another one.

Your firm describes itself as having a very strong design ethos or stylistic code. Is elegance as risk-taking how you would describe that stylistic code?

Yes. I like to fine-tune old details in a minimalistic approach. I like the idea to be pure. If I’m working on an art deco building with art deco decorations inside, it’s crucial for me to respect the time period and make restorations. But if I design a completely new building, and I put inside a disingenuous decoration that looks art deco or looks like something from the past, it’s a little bit ridiculous.

Is there any design innovation happening right now that you’re particularly excited about?

Every day it’s a new day, and every day it’s a new innovation. Everything from yesterday was good, but I’m sure tomorrow morning we’ll discover something more intelligent, with more beauty.