The engineer of bookbinding
- Manuel took first prize in the 2019 International Bookbinding Competition
- He has learnt from some of the world’s best bookbinders
- He was a book collector before deciding to bind books himself
Italian-born Manuel Mazzotti is a bookbinder, designer and trained engineer who creates limited edition books, prints, stationery and installations. Not one to do things by halves, Manuel went to Switzerland to learn from some of the best bookbinders in Europe at the Centro del Bel Libro. He studied the folded, origami-like structures of Hedi Kyle under school director Suzanne Schmollgruber. Then, in 2015, he received a QEST Scholarship to study with two masters, Kathy Abbott and Tracey Rowledge, who specialise in fine binding and gold tooling respectively. Today, his work can be found in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Tate, the British Library, the London College of Fashion and the National Poetry Library.
INTERVIEW
As an engineer, it used to baffle me that so few books perform what I think should be their most basic mechanical function: to open and lie fully flat. So as an avid book collector, I decided to sign up for bookbinding classes to understand how I could modify their structure.
Bookbinding hasn’t changed much in the last few hundred years. Other than an electric guillotine, I use only traditional tools and presses. However, my studio specialises in contemporary bindings rather than fine binding; for example, I use a variety of structures in order to enhance the content of the book.
Forty per cent of what I do is actually making beautiful boxes because, of course, a precious book needs to be kept in a precious box!
Spend time learning from the people whose work you love. Try to learn as many techniques as possible in order to create your own vocabulary to apply to different projects. Experiment.
1 EXPERIENCE
Manuel Mazzotti
Bookbinder
London, United Kingdom
Recommended by Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust - QEST
AVAILABILITY
By appointment only
PHONE
+44 7972807308
LANGUAGES
English
