Juicy Salif

Description

Made of cast and polished aluminum by the Italian kitchenware company Alessi, the tool measures 14 cm in diameter, and 29 cm high.

History

The sleek, exotic-looking shape was inspired by a calamari squid.

The president of the manufacturer, Alberto Alessi, later recalled:

Alberto Alessi, in a recorded video interview posted on Dezeen, said "I am very happy with this project because I consider it a big joke to everybody. [...] It is the most controversial squeezer of the century I must say, but one of the most amusing projects I have done in my career." He regarded it as one of the company's most successful products.

Sales

For the tenth anniversary of its launch, 10,000 Juicy Salifs were issued, individually numbered and gold-plated. But this luxury version came with instructions warning that the juicer should never be used with actual fruit, because the finish would corrode. There has also been a grey/black (anthracite) coloured version, of which 47,000 un-numbered examples were produced between 1991 and 2004. Both now are collector's items, though an urban legend perpetuates the idea that the anthracite version is rarer than the gold-plated one.

By 2003, a total of more than 500,000 of the iconic design artifacts had been sold.

Critical reception

Starck has publicly stated that his citrus reamer was "not meant to squeeze lemons" but "to start conversations".

An image of the Juicy Salif was featured on the front cover of Donald Norman's book Emotional Design. The gold-plated version was described as an "ornament" because citric acid from fruit would discolor and erode the gold plating.

An article in the Financial Times about bad design included the Juicy Salif among other examples, and proposed that the original "chamber of horrors" at the Victoria and Albert Museum be revived, to showcase modern examples.

References

References

1. "Philippe Starck. Juicy Salif Lemon Squeezer. 1988". [[Museum of Modern Art]].
2. (1990). ""Juicy Salif" Lemon Squeezer". [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]].
3. (1990). "Juicy Salif {{!}} Starck, Philippe". [[Victoria and Albert Museum]].
4. "Juicy Salif". [[Rhode Island School of Design Museum]].
5. "Juicy Salif Citrus Squeezer". [[Museum of Fine Arts, Houston]].
6. [https://hivemodern.com/pages/product36/juicy-salif-juicer-starck-alessi "Starck Juicy Salif"], hivemodern.com
7. (2000). "'Juicy Salif' lemon squeezer by Philippe Starck for Alessi, 1990". [[Powerhouse Museum]].
8. (9 July 2014). "Philippe Starck's Juicy Salif was "the most controversial lemon squeezer of the century"".
9. Alessi Company Archive{{full citation needed. (April 2021)
10. (22 November 2016). "The irrationality of pure design".
11. Norman, Donald Arthur. (2005). "[[Emotional Design]]". Basic Books.
12. Heathcote, Edwin. (30 October 2015). "Design horrors: the bad, the ugly and the dysfunctional". [[Financial Times]].