Hot Bertaa
Designer: Phillip Starck // Date: 1989Hot Bertaa is Phillip Starck's bold experiment in designing a minimalist sculptural kettle. Despite being in production for only seven years, it successfully claimed a new share of the market for manufacturers Alessi based on the idea of mass produced design as art object and gift. Despite its poor functionality as a kettle, Alberto Alessi has described Hot Bertaa as a 'beautiful fiasco', admiring it for its playful take on everyday 'kettling'.
Starck's design reduces the aesthetic of how a kettle should look down to its simplest shape. The handle and spout are a single piece that skewers the sculptural body of the kettle. Starck said he was trying to instill a sense of movement in a static object; he called it his theory of immoveable aerodynamics.
Hot Bertaa's body is made from injection-moulded, coated aluminium and the handle and spout are moulded thermo plastic.
Hot Bertaa was the first Phillip Starck design to be commissioned by Alessi. It was designed to be a functioning kettle but the finished product was difficult to use. As Alberto Alessi said, "You shouldn't need an instruction manual to use a kettle!"
Hot Bertaa was commissioned by Alessi as a premium product for the gift market. Alessi manufactures and sells quirky variations on everyday objects. Launched in 1990 Hot Bertaa was withdrawn from sale in 1997 after a series of manufacturing and operational problems. Starck sees Hot Bertaa as a failure but Alberto Alessi believes that failure is an important part of innovation in design.
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