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“Hello, my name is Luca. I am a toy designer and illustrator based in Amsterdam.”
With this concise sentence, which immediately defines him, we enter the website and the brilliant creative world of Luca Boscardin, discovering his projects—most notably Animal Factory, which has achieved and continues to enjoy great success across Europe.
The project, awarded a Special Mention at Fuorisalone and selected among the 20 best projects of Milan Design Week 2022, and winner of the Open Call organized by Stichting NDSM-werf in Amsterdam in 2021, was born during the Covid period, when in a deserted Amsterdam Luca began sketching the stylized forms of many colorful animals using oil pastels.
A continuous line, interrupted only to change color, draws schematic and essential animals, invented in the joyful shapes of a game that brings us closer to childhood, where everything unimaginable is possible and achievable.
Thanks to a constantly alert creativity, Luca fulfills a dream: to “re-enter” the world of children and think, play, be amazed, and recreate with the genuineness that is often lost when we grow up.
“My biggest inspiration comes from children: the way they are able to be so abstract, universal, and iconic. There is a purity in how they perceive. For example, every child knows that a blue line on a piece of paper represents the sky. A triangle on top of a square? That’s an idea of shelter. There is a shared visual language, it’s ‘democratic’, but it’s also intuitive. Simple, but so powerful. I think what many pioneering artists strive for is this same intuition and this ability to imagine.”
From: Metal Beast, Unleashed: Inside Luca Boscardin’s Animal Factory – Dart Magazine
Steel was chosen as the material for production, and through continuous and effective collaboration with a welder and a manufacturer, the first four animals – a giraffe, a crocodile, a gorilla, and a wolf – were installed in the outdoor spaces of NDSM in Amsterdam Noord, a former industrial area now transformed into a creative hub. There they began to “live,” continuing to entertain and relax both mind and body for children and adults alike.
After this first installation, many others followed, also thanks to participation in Milan Design Week and Masterly Milano, where the ever-evolving Animal Factory project captured the attention of architects and designers, helping bring these “minimalistic metal animals” to various cities.
Numerous installations have taken place over the years, up to the most recent one in Naples, in the Piazza d’Armi at Castel Sant’Elmo: a playground featuring Animal Factory, where the yellow giraffe, the green crocodile, and the gorilla stand alongside a dinosaur.
As Luca says:
“All children know that a red car is a Ferrari or that a stick in your hand is a sword. In the same way, a few simple and tall yellow lines are a giraffe, and a green animal with a big mouth is a crocodile.”
From: Minimalist animal sculptures by Luca Boscardin form children’s playground equipment – Dezeen
With their minimal lines, these sculptures transform space into a place for play: public space as a comfort zone, a meeting point, a mini outdoor gym, a bike rack, and much more, because everything depends on the audience, who, like Luca, are invited to invent new uses. And in France, in the very near future, Animal Factory will even become a fitness project.
This creativity echoes inspirations such as Aldo van Eyck’s metal playgrounds and draws from Land Art installations, as well as masters like Saul Steinberg and Charley Harper, Picasso’s sculptures, and Calder’s mobiles and kinetic sculptures.
Thus dinosaurs, camels, ostriches, wildebeests, whales, turtles, zebras, and many other animals at full scale are ready to be born and to populate new urban parks in Italy and abroad with humor and ingenuity.
A colorful invitation to discovery, interaction, meeting, relaxation, play, outdoor fitness, and fun—thanks to Animal Factory, the “minimalistic metal animals.”
Luca Boscardin, who also runs workshops for children and students, has many other projects, including Cavalcade(2016), exhibited at the Vitra Design Museum and the Triennale; Siamo Tutti Pari (2022), selected by the ADI Design Index. He publishes books with Corraini, including Scarti d’Italia and Scarti d’Italia 2, Standing in Line, and Insalate per un anno (Guido Tommasi Editore).
Some of his clients include: Magis, Philips, Triennale Design, Vitra Design Museum, Corraini, Mondadori, Phaidon, ISIA, Palazzo Grassi, Politecnico di Milano, ADI Design Museum, Museo Pecci, and others.
