Retro-Futurism

The Arrival of a New Aesthetic in Flatware Design

Initially designed by Marc Newson for the Lever House in 2001, the Strelka flatware service announced the arrival of a fully-refined new aesthetic for the firm: sleek, seamless, sculptural; organic and yet industrial; retro-futuristic. Strelka speaks to Newson’s deep passion for speed, space travel, sci-fi, and streamlined forms that Strelka speaks to Newson’s deep passion for speed, space travel, sci-fi, and streamlined forms that have been constant themes in his career.have been constant themes in his career—all part of a fascination he traces to watching the Apollo moon landings as a six-year-old boy. “A sense of utopia; a sense of optimism pervaded” that NASA mission, he recalled. “It led me to want to create things, to explore things, to be ambitious.” 

He has designed a concept car for Ford, a prototype jet—the Kelvin 40, for Paris’s Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in 2003—a powerboat, surfboards, and the interiors of Qantas airliners and private planes. When the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company announced plans in 2007 to start a private space tourism program, Newson was chosen to design the interior of the rocket ship. Even the name, Strelka, comes from the name of the pioneer dog that traveled to space aboard a Russian vessel in 1960.

The design was produced by Alessi, whose flatware designs survey the creations of many leading contemporary designers—those of young cutting-edge talents such as Jasper Morrison, Marcel Wanders, Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec to works by legendary designers like Josef Hoffmann, Ettore Sottsass and Achille Castiglioni. The Strelka flatware was never put into large-scale production.Newson’s Strelka design was expensive to create, as each piece incorporates hollow handles that required additional handwork and thus it was never put into large scale production by the firm. The present lot represents an extensive collection of this legendary service.