Terracotta is a special material, one of the oldest in fact, and it tells the story of man.
With this material, you can create sculptures and objects that exist between design and art, as well as simple pots for common use.
From the love and the deep bond with this material comes the story of Dedalica, an idea born from the minds of Matteo Calamai and Daniel Ricceri, these two close friends understood that working with terracotta is a practice that should be handed down.
“Our desire was – and still is today – to try to extend the life of this great material of the Tuscan tradition,” Matteo tells us.
With this mission in mind, Matteo and Daniel have created a new and original version of loudspeakers, which are usually made of plastic and metal.
This is how Dedalica was born, a company that has devised a new approach to loudspeakers: an authentic, sustainable design. These products are useful, Made in Florence, and are exported all over the world.
We asked Matteo to tell us the story of this project, explaining why the “beautiful to hear” speaker could never have been born without terracotta.
Where did the Dedalica project come from?
I came up with the idea with Daniel Ricceri, who is the son of Sergio Ricceri, the owner of one of the most historic furnaces in Impruneta, in the Florentine countryside.
Something of note: this furnace was selected to create some parts of Brunelleschi’s dome in Florence, so it’s truly a historic place. You can actually breathe history. And we breathed it, every day.
Daniel and I actually started Daedalic for fun, given our long friendship. Back in 2012, we tried to make one of his father’s pots a musical pot, as if it were a real loudspeaker.
After several rehearsals, we realised that the land had an interesting magic and that the sound was special. It’s a material that has great rigidity and resistance and, even when subjected to significant temperatures and humidity, it doesn’t warp.
The spherical shape that we’ve conceived and designed is something unique. The sound wave hits the bottom of the speaker and comes out clean, without bouncing.
The land of Impruneta does the rest. With this land, our speakers are guaranteed for life, they will always withstand large temperature changes and will never break.
Dedalica is an interesting name, where does it come from?
It alludes to Greek mythology. All of our speakers are named after characters from Greek mythology such as Zephyrus or Gemini.
But it’s not just a reference to mythology. The Daedalic style is a very ancient Greek sculptural style, that came before the Doric style, in which a lot of attention was given to proportions and was greatly influenced by the Cretan civilization. It’s no coincidence that the mythical sculptor and architect Daedalus was from Crete, according to mythology.
We’ve made these messages our own and we’ve approached this project as a challenge to be able to give, so to speak, a “daedalic” style to the speakers. In fact, each of them has extremely exact proportions. Every detail has precise and appropriate dimensions and angles.
Why, of all materials, did you choose terracotta?
Behind the choice, there was a desire to give an eternity to terracotta. Our desire was – and still is today – to try to extend the life of this great material of the Tuscan tradition.
Terracotta is a material that expands our cultural horizons. Questo è il materiale più naturale che c’è. This is the most natural material there is. The manufacturing and firing are as natural as possible and what could be greener and more natural than Mother Earth? Nothing.
How much do “useful” and “beautiful” come together in your big design?
We want to make the speaker not only a hightech thing but also a piece of furniture to give it an uncommon stature, which enriches both indoor and outdoor spaces.
Sometimes you may find a speaker that looks great but sounds bad, or one that sounds good, but which aesthetically is not the best and is better hidden behind a bookcase. Dedalica speakers, on the other hand, have the best acoustic resonance and are important design pieces which enhance houses and gardens in a unique way.
More than a pot
You can learn more about this topic and find many other interesting insights in our “More than a pot” magazine dedicated to terracotta pots.
