Luigi Land

Buon Giorno!

Work is going well at Luigi’s office. We just started on the winery project – a competition that he won in association with another office – our office gets to design it while their office gets to do the documentation and management – nice arrangement for us. It’s a brand new building (offices, wine tasting and cellars) for Casella Wines – who you may know if you drink any of the Yellow Tail wines imported from Australia. Ironically, it’s not widely distributed nor marketed here (like Foster’s beer) – I think Casella has focused their efforts on the export market and have done very well by it – they have seen huge growth in the last 10 years. They’re a winery that has been around for almost 50 years – started by an Italian couple who immigrated from Italy. We’re excited about the project – it’s something new for Luigi who has done almost exclusively high-end residential and restaurant/boutique work.

A bit of pop trivia: one of Luigi’s first clients were two of the band member from INXS – an Australian band that was hugely popular in the 80’s (who didn’t love the MTV video “the One Thing” – it was a great one by INXS – back in the early days of MTV when it was actually about music). Anyway, Luigi was commissioned to do a house for one band member overlooking the beach – and then another for one of the other band members (no, not Michael Hutchinson – the hot lead singer). I think Luigi has done quite well for himself – he’s a very good architect who seems to satisfy his clients in both the process and end product.
for more on Luigi, check out http://www.luigirosselli.com/

We got another celebrity tid-bit out of Luigi over Friday lunch (our office goes out to lunch together on Fridays – with a round of beers). He recounted a most hilarious experience being interviewed by Russel(l) Crowe. It was an all day interview that took place on Crowe’s huge property, involved a banquet meal with Crowe sitting at the head of a long table (tapestry hung behind him - gladiator like - or is it the Master-and-Commander??); ATV-ing around the property (with Luigi in his nice Italian suit); diplomatically critiquing Crowe’s design sketches on what he thought would be great architecture; and a few other things I can’t divulge except in hushed tones over drinks at a cocktail party. We all had a good laugh over the story – plus Luigi is such a down-to-earth sort of person that his perspective on all of the celebrity quirky silliness was just hilarious. In the end he didn’t get the commission, but I think he was happy not to – he probably would have been a very difficult client.

Here are a couple of Luigi's sketches for the Casella project plus a photo of the site.


Yenda - our project site
(6 hr drive west of Sydney):



Casella Wines
(entry and tasting room)