Drocco / Mello

Guido Drocco was born in San Benedetto Belbo, Cuneo in 1942. He graduated with a degree in Architecture from the Polytechnic University of Turin and worked professionally in the field of architecture and industrial design. In 1966 he became an architectural design lecturer at the Faculty of Architecture at the Polytechnic University of Turin.

Franco Mello was born in Genoa in 1945. He lives and works in Turin and Spineto Scrivia. Mello works in the field of design, packaging, graphic design, publishing and art. He was involved in the review of books on art, design catalogues and posters for numerous artists from Arte Povera to Transavanguardia, including Piero Manzoni, Giulio Paolini, Giuseppe Peone, Alberto Burri, Yves Klein, Bridget Riley and Pinot Gallizio.

With the original of their most famous collaboration, ‘Cactus’, included in the collections at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and Tate Modern in London, amongst others, it’s true to say that the partnership of Guido Drocco and Franco Mello is one of the most celebrated in modern furniture. Blurring the lines between playful and practical, indoor and outdoor and natural and artificial, ‘Cactus’ was a child of the 1970s, created for Gufram by the duo in 1972. Using ground-breaking self-hardening polyurethane foam, it’s a piece that’s withstood the vagaries of fashion, with fans demanding it be rereleased over the decades in a variety of glorious incarnations.