HEAVY METAL: QUARRYHOUSE’S NEIGHBOR MICHAEL BONDI METAL DESIGN
Interior design by Suzanne Tucker/Tucker & Marks
Photo by Edward Addeo
One of QuarryHouse's neighbors in industrial Richmond is Michael Bondi Metal Design, specializing in architectural and interior wrought metal for private estates and public spaces. Like a modern-day Vulcan, its owner, Michael Bondi, forges shapes from fire and metal. The stonemasons and metalworkers also share clients sometimes working on the same projects. Interior designer Suzanne Tucker is a mutual client, and she says of Bondi, "The magical alchemy of metalsmithing will never cease to astound me. In the hands of Michael Bondi and his crew, this craft is elevated to artistic expression at its finest." The firm's commercial portfolio ranges from embellishing the Beaux-Arts masterpiece San Francisco City Hall to creating a two-foot steel Arts & Crafts style troll statue as a talisman for the Bay Bridge's new Eastern Span.
Bay Bridge Troll Photo by Jim Stone
Bondi's aesthetics and skills originated in Treviso, Italy, where his brother, the late Stephen Bondi, trained in the studio of master iron sculptor Simone Benetton. In the mid-1970s in America, blacksmithing was becoming a lost art usurped by mass-produced items. Stephen, who taught jewelry and metalwork on the East Coast, wanted to learn large-scale ornamental ironwork. Benetton presided over one of Europe's largest and most respected architectural ironwork forges, following in the traditions of his father sculptor Toni Benetton and Art Nouveau craftsman Alessandro Mazzucotelli. Bondi visited his brother at the Treviso studio and became entranced by Italian metalwork for its range of ironwork styles and quality of artistry.
Michael Bondi in his Richmond studio featured in the Wall Street Journal
In 1977, the brothers opened their first artist blacksmithing shop in Berkeley, collaborating with architects and designers on gates, doors, staircases, railings, and sculptures in various metals. Bondi went solo in the mid-eighties, starting his eponymous firm. Over forty years later, he is still taking an ancient craft and translating it into modern shapes from classic scrolls to contemporary abstractions. Whatever the genre, he is a master, "There is poetry in the way Michael deftly conjures architectural and decorative elements within the confines of form and function. His craftsmanship is quite simply unparalleled." says Tucker.
For more information about Michael Bondi, read California Homes Magazine's July/ August 2021 profile.
