The architect and designer Matteo Thun created the Pinguino I Teapot at the request of the Italian industrialist and designer Cleto Munari, who commissioned many of the most renowned architects of the twentieth century to design functional objects for limited production.¹ Thun designed three variations of the Pinguino carafe for Munari, but Pinguino I was the most successful. The cylindrical silver teapot leans forward at a dramatic angle while the wooden handle elegantly curves down and around, giving the illusion that it passes through the center of the vessel and forms a support that attaches at the front of the base. This dynamic asymmetrical arrangement of forms became an important stylistic trait of postmodern design in the 1980s. The angularity of the teapot is accentuated by its pointed spout, which is meant to resemble a bird’s beak, specifically that of a penguin. Indeed, the teapot’s two-tone color scheme and sleek profile evoke the form of a penguin gliding through the water. Pinguino I also relates closely to Thun’s concurrent ceramic designs for Memphis, such as Post-Modern Teapot (1982) and Vase Volga (1983).

Thun studied under Oskar Kokoschka and Emilio Vedova at the Salzburg Academy before receiving his degree in architecture from the University in Florence in 1975. Three years later, he moved to Milan and began working in the office of Ettore Sottsass. This experience led him to become one of the cofounders of the Italian design collective Memphis in 1981. Thun left Memphis in 1984 and established his own multidisciplinary architecture and design firm based in Milan that he still leads today.² —Sarah Marie Horne