Is a tea kettle a work of art? Alberto Alessi, grandson of Alessi founder Giovanni, certainly thinks so. Alessi’s president said the success of the company over the past six decades has been driven by his motto that functional objects like toasters and spoons have the potential to be intrinsically poetic.

In 102 years of his family’s history and debuts of envelope-pushing designs by architecture and design‘s most colorful icons — Ettore Sottsass, Aldo Rossi, Achille Castiglioni and Philippe Starck among them — his favorite is the one his father made: the Bombé tea and coffee set.