Alessandro Massari trained as an architect and spent his military service as a superintendent of architectural heritage.
He took over the business set up by his father, who designed his first yacht interior in 1964 and then worked as a consultant for CRN before it became part of the Ferretti Group. He was the interior project manager on Gianni Agnelli’s F100, the celebrated yacht with exterior design by Gerhard Gilgenast, and worked on Azzurra II, another classic CRN yacht, It goes without saying that yacht design was in Alessandro Massari’s blood from the start.
He started out as a young interior designer but soon he realised he would need to perfect his English by seeking work experience in the US. So he ended up spending two years working for the Florida-based studio Paola D. Smith & Associates, one of the most important design firm worldwide at that time and where he learnt how to tailor the design to the client’s wishes.
That lesson stayed with him and today as a studio the creative process starts by listening with almost maniacal attention to the client. After listening, they study and then propose, always in that order.
Alessandro returned to Italy, but his apprenticeship as a designer was not over: he had the technical knowledge, but not the hand-on experience his father considered an essential ingredient of the job. So, he went to work for a carpentry company designing onboard furniture for shipyards like Wally and Benetti. Originally called in to help resolve issues with a client and his American interior designer, he ended up overseeing the interior shop drawings and outfitting of Benetti’s Classic and Vision series in composite. This led to taking on the interior design of larger steel and aluminium yachts from 59-metre Wind (now Galkynysh) to 62-metre Bistango (now Sorrento). By 2010 he had contributed to the interior design of some 25 superyachts from half a dozen leading shipyards.
An important custom project was Forever One the 54 mt motoryacht built by ISA Yachts Shipyard in 2014.
By this time Massari Design was juggling a growing number of residential commissions with large yacht projects such as Nobiskrug’s 76-metre Halo and 101-metre IDynasty built by Kusch in Germany, his biggest yacht interior to date.
While working in Germany a chance meeting with Sheldon Adelson, founder of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation that owns a chain of hotels and casinos, led to another fork in the road for Massari. The American entrepreneur hired him to develop the interior concept for The Venetian, a massive resort and casino complex in Macau. Other Sands resorts followed as well as the refitting of 92-metre Queen Miri for Adelson at Amico&Co in Genoa. Moreover, Massari Design oversaw the interior concepts for various private jets in the Sands Corporation fleet and worked closely with Boeing at the Citadel complex in Louisiana, the world’s premier provider of VIP interior completions for large airplanes.
In 2020 Alessandro started working on MY Project X an 88 mt motoryacht by the Greek Shipyard Golden Yachts whose interiors have been completely revamped by the Massari Design Studio (the studio is also developing the interior design for 77-metre O’Rea always by Golden Yachts).
At the same time as Project X, the studio was working on CRN Shipyard’s 52-metre MY Ciao. As well as a Darwin 86 and 130-foot Acciaio explorer at Cantiere delle Marche, one of Massari Design’s most recent projects is Wider’s new production facilities on Fano’s seafront that is now close to completion.
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