Bitossi’s fruity lighting and furniture is totally bananas

Bitossi fruit furniture by Robert Stadler

‘OMG-GMO’ is Bitossi's latest creative collaboration, a series by Robert Stadler curated by Carwan Gallery's Nicolas Bellavance-Lecompte featuring realistic fruit and vegetable shapes turned into furniture and lighting. Presented during Milan Design Week 2023, the collection is a whimsical interpretation of functional furniture demonstrating Bitossi's mastery of material, shape and colour. 

‘OMG-GMO’ by Robert Stadler and Bitossi

‘Vita Mix’ chandelier (Image credit: Alejandro Ramirez Orozco )

The premise of the collection is simple: in his most playful piece of work in a decade-long career, Stadler recreated realistic shapes of fruit and vegetables, which were combined into suggestive, functional furniture designs. 

A pair of bananas become the hangers of a valet stand, while a photorealistic slice of watermelon is the seat on a stool. A trio of carrots joined at the top practically double as a table lamp, while some celery leans on the wall, projecting light onto the surface from its stalk. There are bent zucchini (supporting the wooden shelves of a bookcase), aubergines (the legs of a Gae Aulenti-inspired glass-topped coffee table), a sliced avocado (the base of a cucumber floor lamp) and walnuts (playfully dotted throughout the collection). An impressive chandelier, meanwhile, combines several of these motifs into a colourful, fruity extravaganza. 

‘Juicy Josef’ stool (Image credit: Filippo Telaro)

Today's shop-displayed vegetables look perfect and often have little resemblance to their species’ natural forms, something that Stadler has been observing and commenting on through his work: 'Engineering has become even more extreme, incorporating genetic modification and sophisticated cultivation techniques that give fruit and vegetables of almost artificial perfection and symmetry.'

‘Mute Mix’ valet stand (Image credit: Filippo Telaro)

According to a note from the gallery, the collection 'offers a witty comment on the relationship between humans and their environment, as seen through the genetic manipulation of fruit and vegetables'. Stadler's fruit and vegetables are perfect and spotless, a way for the designer to comment on themes of agricultural domestication, selective breeding and bioengineering.

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‘Tip Toe’ table lamp (Image credit: Filippo Telaro)

The base of the ‘Size Matters’ floor lamp (Image credit: Filippo Telaro)

‘Gay Gae’ table (Image credit: Filippo Telaro)