where the magic of wood becomes… art
Genius cannot be confined in a nutshell.
The revolutionary nutcracker that brings design and functionality together…
Everybody has used a nutcracker once. Everybody has struggled with it and everybody (at least once) ended up closing his finger in it.
Now Aladino is here: a simple turn of a lever and walnuts and hazelnuts lay open without any effort.
It’s not a lamp, sure but it’s
still “magical” in its own way
No lamps in this story. No wizards or caves either but… I was in the middle of a business trip to promote my last creation: a little machine to cut olives, perfect for a local recipe.
It was a somewhat crude, but very effective object. I proposed it to a greengrocery. As soon as they saw it they fell in love with it. I was flattered, and then they asked me: “Listen, would you be able to design one that opens nuts?”
“every time I have to crack nuts it ends…badly”
And Idea born
out of chance
…that wasn’t exactly what he said, but … “that same night I figured it out: a big wheel, with a handle, moving a lever system.”
Just a week passed, I ran some trials, and I had already made my first nutcracker prototype. It was admittedly too big, but it worked like a beauty.
I came back to that project hundreds of times. I made its shapes simpler, I reduced its size, working tirelessly night after night. There’s an old proverb: “you want to eat the nut? You have to crack the shell”. And so…
Aladino
I looked carefully at the new body I had built for the machine. It looked like Aladdin’s lamp. Its hammer has two sizes, and can be adapted to walnuts or hazelnuts with a flick of a finger.
Aladino came to life just like this: a bit out of chance, a bit out of persistence. It was both awaited and unexpected. Unique, like its own story.
Revolutionary
Serviceable
Splendidly Designed
With its solid Iroko frame, Aladino has a marine plywood mechanism that gives strength to two little pins and a Wenge wood hammer, able to open nuts of different sizes with a simple turn of its lever.
Simple, geometric shapes define its innovative and elegant design. It is a beauty to watch and a pleasure to use. It serves gracefully as a kitchen appliance and as a decorative object.
Something “Sacred”
The Iroko wood that makes up the body of Aladino holds something special inside. Many African populations consider this majestic tree to be sacred. They call it “the people’s tree”.
According to an ancient legend, the Iroko tree was the only one to survive a terrible draught caused by a fight between the Sky and the Earth, because its deep roots and high-reaching branches kept them both together.