IV.閱讀測驗:24%,每題2分
       Ever fashionable, the Alessi brand has managed to transform from a metal utensil anddish designer to fully espfore all kitchen and household options, incorporating the work ofleading designers from Philippe Stark to Michael Graves and Aldo Rossi. Throughout itshistors Alessi has chosen direction based on the guidance of its designers and thedevelopment of the product itself. The brand vision appears to be to revel in design in allareas of life, to cnjoy and celcbrate the simplicity of everyday objects, and to take riskswhether there exists a need for risk or not. Or put simply: No man should be forced to dinefrom a Boring plale.
        But how did Alessi acquire such a frivolously jubilant reputation?The year was 1921, the sctting, a small town in the foothills of the Italian Alps, the founderGiovanni Alessi for whom the company is named was a metal expert working with a lathe tocreate workmanlike metal utensils and dishes. The result was a family-run brand that wouldcontinually adapt to set style in the kitchen and home using a variety of mediums from silver,bronze and stainless steel to porcelain, ceramic, and eventually, plastic.
       Although Giovanni was an able cralisman, it wasn't until his eldest son Carlo stepped upto the plate in the thirties and forties that the brand began to be associated with a stylc ofdesign unique to the Alessi name. Carlo's playfully tlamboyant Bombe coffee and tea set iscelebrated as creating a design sensibility in Italy that can still be scen as an intluence in manyof the products today. It was these early designs that encouraged ordinary Italians to viewtheir kitchen as a living arthouse, where the salt and pepper shaker were more than just thefunctional sum of their parts.
       Carlo's eldest son Alberto continued along the path set by la famiglia and propelled thecompany into the international world of design. In the carly nineties, on the advice of hisdesigners, Alberto allowed the use of plastic to address a trend of customers yearning forjoyful, playful design," as he put it. This change of direction for the braod, which prior to theadvent of plastic, was becoming an clitist symbol of yuppic afluence, helped Alessi to breakaway from the barsh lines of the eighties and adjust to the more organic nineties.
        And it is this advice from his designers that seems to inforr Alberto's approach tomanaging the brand's direction. Rather than tracking the whims and desires of the market base,Alessi follows the suggestion of its designcrs in deciding where its next steps will be. Thisapproach is a boon to designers who may wish to design free Trom the confines of theaudience's voice. In this manner. the evolution of Alessi's is such that an clegant cup andsaucer can reside next to a llamboyanty tentacled octopus whisk.
        But for those aesthetes who worry that the brind is too accessible to the masscs, Alessihas created a dual branding systemn to distinguish between its popular price point products andthe more cxclusive designs. 'There is the Alessi product, which is mass produced and casilyaccessed through deparlment stores, and then a system of marks for designers dedicated toexperimenting and manufaetured in limited cditions. These names include Officina Alessi,product designed solely in metal, Nlessi Twergi, using only wood, and Alessi Tendentse.which uscs porcelain and crystal glass.        Content for its produets to be confincd to the kitchen, the Alessi name in turn aspires toattain rocognition within the design community. And the rest of the world obviously concursas Alessi design can be found in muscums throughout the world
【題組】39. What is most likely the author's comment on Alessi products?
(A) A symbol of household innovation
(B) Transforming industry into art
(C) A brand with long tradition
(D) Putting fun into function