Dodo Arslan
Book Your Experience
Book Your Experience
Overview
There is an ancient gesture at the heart of this day: the moment a thought leaves the mind and enters matter. In a private Chianti castle, you sit with Dodo Arslan, recognised by Taschen among the 90 most important designers in the world, and you are asked one question. What do you dream of turning into form? From that answer, everything begins. You move between a Renaissance hilltop and a working bronze foundry, tracing the nine stages by which liquid metal becomes a sculptural object. You leave carrying a bronze piece, a signed sketch born of your own imagination, and the precise memory of fire, wax, and a conversation that changed the shape of an idea.
Included Privileges
- Private half-day with Dodo Arslan across castle and foundry
- Full guided experience of the nine-stage lost wax casting process at the Fonderia Artistica Del Giudice
- A signed preliminary sketch drawn by Dodo Arslan, based on your personal concept, dated in your presence
- A bronze object made for this experience, hand-engraved by the artist with a personal dedication
- Dedicated packaging for the bronze piece
- All transfers between castle and foundry
- Opportunity to open a commission dialogue with Dodo Arslan (commission itself not included)
Itinerary
- You are welcomed at a historic castle in the Chianti hills. The setting is private and unhurried.
- Dodo introduces the governing idea of the day: the passage from an inner image to a physical object.
- He asks you to name a dream, a symbol, or a desire you would want translated into form.
- The conversation moves slowly, on purpose. Dodo listens, reflects, asks again. The concept is born here.
- Transfer by car to the working foundry, minutes from the castle.
- You walk through all nine stages of the lost wax casting process (more details in Experience Details)
- Dodo draws a preliminary sketch on paper, inspired by the concept you built together in the morning.
- The sketch is conceptual, dated, and signed in your presence.
- Dodo presents a small bronze work created specifically for this experience.
- He engraves a personal dedication into it by hand, in front of you.
- The piece is placed in dedicated packaging and is yours to keep.
- This object marks entry into Dodo's world as a collector, not a visitor.
- For those who wish to go further: a commission conversation begins.
- Dodo discusses the transformation of your concept into a unique bronze work.
- This covers project development, materials, dimensions, timeline, and economic terms.
The Experience
The morning begins in stone. The castle smells of old wood and Chianti earth, and Dodo is already there, unhurried, his attention entirely on you. He does not begin with art. He begins with a question about memory, about desire, about the image that surfaces when you close your eyes and think of something you would want to exist in the world. You s...
Why Guests Love It
“He did not ask what I wanted to make, instead he asked what I had been carrying. By the end of the day, it had a shape.” — Kenji M., Tokyo
Meet the Expert
Dodo Arslan
Dodo Arslan is an Italo-Armenian art designer who lives and works between Milan and Florida, recognised by Taschen among the 90 most important designers and manufacturers in the world, featured in both Design Now and Design/Art Limited Editions. He founded his own studio in 2004, having trained at two of Europe's most demanding design practices, working on projects for Deutsche Post, Motorola, Hewlett Packard, and Samsung — a formation that gave him something rare: a designer who understands industrial production from the inside and chose, deliberately, to move toward the handmade.
His awards include the Archiproducts Design Award, the ADI Index 2022 and 2023 selections, the Young and Design Prize, the Mini Design Award, the Pirelli Pzero Prize, the Art Directors Club, the Good Design Award, and the KIDA Grand Prize. His work has been exhibited at the National Museum of Science and Technology in Milan, the Arnaldo Pomodoro Foundation, and in museums across Berlin, Beijing, London, New York, Shanghai, and São Paulo. Two pieces are held in the permanent collection of the Campari Design Gallery. His limited edition works are sold by Pierre Bergé and Associés in Brussels.
He was appointed by the Banca Svizzera Italiana to sculpt the BSI Centenary Foundation Award. He created the Italic Award trophy for the Italy-America Chamber of Commerce and sculpted Nikē for the centenary of the Italian Air Force. He has lectured in design faculties across Italy, the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Egypt, and Sweden.
For over twenty-five years his practice has moved between serial production and unique bronze objects, between lighting for the world's most influential brands and sculptures cast by the finest foundries in Italy. He believes an object that has not listened cannot speak.