Giorgetto Giugiaro

Giorgetto Giugiaro (Italian pronunciation: [dʒorˈdʒetto dʒuˈdʒaːro]; born 7 August 1938) is an Italian automotive designer. He has worked on supercars and popular everyday vehicles. He was named Car Designer of the Century in 1999 and inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in 2002.^[1] He was awarded the Compasso d'Oro industrial design award six times, including a lifetime achievement recognition in 1984.^[2]

Born7 August 1938 (age 87)

Garessio, Piedmont, Kingdom of Italy

OccupationDesigner

KnownforCar designing

SpouseMaria Teresa Serra

Quick facts Born, Occupation ...

Giorgetto Giugiaro
Giugiaro in 2016
Born	(1938-08-07) 7 August 1938 (age 87) Garessio, Piedmont, Kingdom of Italy
Occupation	Designer
Known for	Car designing
Spouse	Maria Teresa Serra
Children	2

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In addition to cars, Giugiaro designed camera bodies for Nikon, the Navigation promenade of Porto Santo Stefano, in 1983,^[3]^[4] the organ of the Cathedral of Lausanne (composed of about 7000 pipes) in 2003,^[5] and developed a new pasta shape, "Marille". He also designed several watch models for Seiko, mainly racing chronographs,^[6] as well as office furniture for Okamura Corporation.^[7]

Influence on design

Giugiaro's earliest cars, such as the Alfa Romeo 105/115 Series Coupés, often featured arched and curving shapes, similar to those found in the De Tomaso Mangusta, Iso Grifo, and Maserati Ghibli.

From the late 1960s, Giugiaro's designs became increasingly angular, transitioning via the gentle bends of the 1971 Maserati Bora, and culminating in the straight-lined, "folded paper" era of the 1970s and 1980s designs such as the 1974 first VW Golf, the 1976 Lotus Esprit S1, 1978 BMW M1, and the 1981 DMC DeLorean. During the early 1990s, he adapted to the era and introduced more curvaceous designs, exemplified by the Lamborghini Calà, Maserati Spyder, and Ferrari GG50.

Giugiaro is widely known for the DMC DeLorean, prominently featured in the Hollywood movie series Back to the Future. His most commercially successful design is the Volkswagen Golf Mk1.

In 1976, Giugiaro explored a taxi concept with the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), which became the 1978 Lancia Megagamma concept. Fiat had commissioned the 1978 concept from Italdesign, asking for a 4-meter length, high roof, high h-point, multi-functional, monospace design — but ultimately decided the ides was too risky for production. In retrospect, the Megagamma was more influential than successful in its own right. It is considered the "conceptual birth mother of the MPV/minivan movement."^[8] It influenced the design of such mini/compact MPVs as the Nissan Prairie (1981) and Fiat 500L (2011), as well as larger MPVs, including the Renault Espace and Chrysler minivans.

Career and studios

Giugiaro began his career as a stylist in 1959 at the in-house Special Vehicle Design department of Italy's major carmaker, Fiat.^[9]

From 1959 until 1965, he worked in a similar capacity for Gruppo Bertone, a company exclusively working for other carmakers, primarily as a styling and design studio, similar to a building architecture firm, as well as handling low volume production of special edition cars for different carmakers.^[9] Although Bertone and Italy's other car and industrial design studios would create design proposals for other car brands on their own initiative, and sometimes even show concept cars under their own name, they never combined their design and production work for other carmakers with independent car manufacturing in their own right and under their own brand name, like Lotus in the UK, or Porsche in Germany.

In 1965, Giugiaro switched to working for Ghia, another of Italy's car design studios, through 1967. This experience was followed by a brief stint at Studi Italiani Realizzazione Prototipi (SIRP) in 1968, after which^[10]

In 1968, Giugiaro established his own studio, Italdesign Giugiaro.^[9]^[11] In 2015, he founded the design studio GFG Style in Turin with his son, Fabrizio Giugiaro, where he works to the present day.^[12]^[13]^[14]