”Eero Aarnio (1932) is one of the greatest renewers of contemporaneous Scandinavian design. I find this designer especially interesting, because I regard him as a kind of a ‘child in the adult’, which is why he always takes care to connect playful and paradox aspects of the design world. He created a kind of “playful Scandinavian design” that has turned away from the purist professional ethos, which is the predominant characteristic of Northern European design. The projects here are the first ones of a product family that we are going to expand”, said Alberto Alessi about the cooperation with Eero Aarnio.
For more than half a century, Eero Aarnio has with great consistency designed household objects in geometric, rounded forms and vivid colours that are reminiscent of childlike “classification systems”. His objects - almost exclusively made of plastic - are visual stories that unite ironic and playful qualities into precise and explicitly functional articles of daily use. The same applies also to his iconic chair creations “Ball chair” (1966), „Pastil chair“ (1967) and „Bubble chair“ (1968) that made him famous.
The lemon squeezer "Citrus", which Aarnio designed for Alessi, is made of thermoplastic resin - in other words, also of synthetic material. Citrus is available in an orange and a transparent version.