Miguel Galluzzi

Tuesday, January 29th, 7:00 – 9:30pm

PRESENTS:

My Life in Design

In The Duncan Anderson Design Department Gallery at California State University, Long Beach

Miguel Angel Galluzzi is an industrial designer, specializing in motorcycle design, who created the Ducati Monster, an “instant icon that singlehandedly launched the naked bike niche.” Starting out as a styling exercise in 1992, the idea of a minimalist motorcycle began with Galluzzi thinking, “All you need is a saddle, tank, engine, two wheels and handlebars”.

Other notable designs by Galluzzi include the Aprilia SL 750 Shiver of 2009 and the 2012 Moto Guzzi “Art Nouveau style” California 1400.

Galluzzi is a third generation motorcyclist whose first motorcycle was a 1959 Kreidler Florett 50 he received for his eighth birthday, a present that disappointed him at first because, said Galluzzi, his “head was 100 percent into music” and he really wanted a drum set.

Galluzzi graduated from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California in 1986. He first worked for Opel, and then for Honda’s V-Car/Omega design studio in 1988. In 1989 Galluzzi went to work for Ducati’s parent company, Cagiva. He stayed at Cagiva for 17 years, until July 2006 when he became Styling Director at Aprilia, rising to become Vice President of Design for Piaggio Group, Aprilia’s parent.

In 2012, Galluzzi relocated from Piaggio’s headquarters in Pisa to Pasadena, California to lead the company’s new Advanced Design Center. Galuzzi chose the Pasadena location, “because of its proximity to centers of transportation thought,” namely the Art Center College of Design, California Institute of Technology, and Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

“Designing for PIAGGIO I’m not thinking only about motorcycles,” Galluzzi says. “This global financial situation is opening many windows and giving designers a chance to reinvent the way we move around cities. That’s where Piaggio has an advantage over other manufacturers. We’re talking about two-and three- wheeled transportation that’s urban, mobile and intelligent. In the future, we’re going to be moving a lot more people. So we need something more practical, more ecological and more economical.”

This lecture is organized by The CSULB George L. Graziadio Center for Italian Studies, Spring Lecture Series; The CSULB Department of Design, Duncan Anderson Design Lecture Series; Bridges to Italy and The Academy of Foreign Language.