Aldo Rossi, Ashtray, ashtray for the BLEND Collection

It was a time when the tobacco industry could still work quite naturally with big names from the world of design. The Swedish tobacco company Svenska Tobaks – later Swedish Match – had a rather clever idea: they invited internationally renowned designers and architects to design something unimaginably banal – an ashtray. This was the birth of the BLEND Collection. The ashtrays were intended to promote the BLEND cigarette brand.

Participants invited were: Marc Newson, Ettore Sottsass, Aldo Rossi, Jasper Morrison, Andrée Putman, Toshiyuki Kita, Love Arbén and Studio Garouste & Bonetti. The designs were presented on May 18, 1995, at the Design Museum London. A book was published to accompany the project. In 1996, the exhibition was also shown at the Louvre in Paris and subsequently at the Millesgården Museum in Stockholm.

Not all the ashtrays were produced. They were never sold, but instead given away as promotional items! What a fortune that must have cost. The ashtray by Aldo Rossi offered here is unused, absolutely new, and comes in its original packaging.

Aldo Rossi 1995
Edition BLEND Collection 1996
Aluminum, hand-cast, sandblasted and lacquered
Cube dimensions 9 x 9 x 9 cm, the tray protrudes by 2 cm
approx. 1100 grams in weight

This item is subject to differential taxation according to § 25a UStG (German Value Added Tax Act).