Moka coffee pot

The Moka coffee pot has established itself as a generic object. Like a bottle opener, a pair of spectacles, or scissors, it has become a familiar item of the everyday. It has assumed its rightful place in the kitchen and the rituals of daily life. Its character is defined not onlyby its friendly silhouette, but also by its soft dull grey aluminium materiality and the agreeable grinding noise that accompanies the simple mechanical screwing and unscrewing of its body. How amazing that this complex and well-performing object has become readable and comprehensible, a machine that needs no instruction and no invitation to be part of domestic life. How can one redesign it? Perhaps only by making it more of what it already is. David Chipperfield