Victoria Arduino Venus Bar Brochure

VENUS

divine beauty

Pier

Teresio Arduino is said to have

dedicated his first creation to his wife.

He called the innovative coffee machine

Vittoria, or rather Victoria, for his love of the

Classic world that was the source of inspiration for

the names of his other creations.

Victoria like Venus, goddess of the Roman pantheon.
A perfect name that evokes the prototype of beauty, the opu­lence of form, the elegance, the grace, the quite feminine
coquetry of she who won the vote of Paris in exchange for the
love of Helen for him, she who compelled the eyes of men with
arrogance and yet showed a vague virginal reluctance.
It is the object for contemplation, the pleasure of sight, infinite
love for timeless legend of beauty.
Even today, the Venus seems to preserve the splendour of the
sea foam from which the goddess was born, with its ample,
smooth mirrored surfaces that reflect light a thousand times
over, returning to the onlooker as in an enchanted gold, silver or
copper mirror. It is a fascinating game that captivates, where a
sort of spell is cast, as if captured hopelessly by the glance of a
benevolent Medusa. It is somehow the attraction of Tannhäuser
for Venus, or of Guerrin Meschino for the world of the fairies he
encountered in Sybil’s profound loops, the deep-rooted nostal­gia for the infinite goodness of the Golden Age lost and at the
same time present, with the grasp of senses and sensations.
Even if a century has passed, this is all still evident in Pier Teresio
Arduino’s creation: Venus.

VENUS

Apart from the technological innovations
brought by Pier Teresio Arduino, the reasons
behind the success of the Venus coffee
machine derives chiefly from the extremely
seductive shape and the harmony of
proportion that is reminiscent of the classic
golden rule, which has also influenced
contemporary design and architecture.
At the time of Arduino’s design, modern
cars, machine tools, the earliest “electrical
appliances” still combined functionality with
shape. Although this was in substance
linear and essential, it was in any case
aesthetically developed because each
object, being the work of a human being,
was entitled to have its own “beauty” and
its own dignity, which would in a manner of

speaking redeem it from its nature
of instrument that existed only in relation
to its specific function.

“Those who find beautiful meanings in
beautiful things are the cultivated. For these
there is hope. They are the elect to whom
beautiful things mean only beauty.”
(O. Wilde)

In a world that was changing abruptly,
shaking off fin du siècle conventions, the
Venus made an enormous impact.
Its elegant, inspiring appearance allowed
it to triumph over and also enhance the
humdrum gesture of sipping
a cup of coffee.

de divina proportione

“The

cupola is a domed vault

with perfect central symmetry and

is built around a circular base with a

semi-circular profile that is either parabolic or

ovoid. Its function is to demarcate and to enclose

ample spaces, its static difficulties have always
made it constitutionally the most arduous means of
plastic expression, but nevertheless the cupola

embodies the concept of perfection. “Yet all beauty

is perfect - an animal, a painting, a woman -

(says Musil) it is nothing other than the last

piece of the circle; a curve is perfect, it is

seen as such, but one would wish

to meet the circle ...”.

Legend has it that the eagle can look at
the sun without succumbing to its
splendour. In no way dazzled, the bird
continues to fly higher than any other
with its gaze fixed in the future.
As a symbol of strength and victory, Pier
Teresio Arduino decorated the top of his
coffee machine with a Victory spreading

her wings, like a latter day Nike, frozen
just at the split second in which she is
taking flight towards even loftier and
more coveted destinations.
It is no coincidence that many cars that
were designed or became famous in
that period chose winged beings as
decorative symbols: the Rolls Royce, for

instance, to which the Venus may be
associated for its preciousness, which
derives from its carefully crafted
production.

Nor did the well-wishing symbol chosen
for the Victoria Arduino disappoint
expectations.

a symbol, a name, a story