How far does the delirium of chasing a passion could take you? A peek into the life of Flavio Manzoni, the Chief Design Officer at Ferrari, unravels a journey that’s been far from unidirectional. The man behind some of the most iconic car designs of the cult prancing horse clarifies that he is not a fanatic when it comes to cars. Specialisations and sticking to one’s guns hold no place in his creatively-rich life. STIR had the chance to get an intimate insight into the mind of the Italian architect and automotive designer in a rare conversation where the dialogue treads on the importance of his architectural education (and non-education in car design), the evolution of his interest in sketching and how his father has been a key figure of influence in what he is doing today. Manzoni also unpacks what it means to represent a historic company, how cross-fertilisation fuels his creative processes, and why teamwork makes the dream work.

Born on January 07, 1965, in Nuoro, Sardinia, Manzoni spent his youth in a creatively charged environment. 'Eclectic', and someone whose 'span of curiosity was always very broad,' he picked up sketching skills from his architect father. It happened, he tells STIR, quite organically almost around the same time as when he began talking. One of the key learnings he had from his father was how to communicate an idea on a piece of paper. An instance that he cherishingly recalls in the interview is from the fourth grade of primary school when his father taught him how to visualise perspective drawings. The lesson ingrained an understanding of scale, proportions, and balance in him, and this formative experience perhaps led him to pursue an architectural education in his later years.

A graduate of the University of Florence, Manzoni nurtured his love for cars while learning about the world of form-making. The architect attributes the biggest influence of his architectural education to his cross-functional approach to creating anything under the roof. The limitless horizons of the discipline created “a beautiful opportunity to be not only an architect but also a car designer,” he says. “When I start to design a car, I think about the architecture of it. I don’t think about the form and the formal language. I think in terms of proportions, equilibrium, and how the formal language of the car can express the soul of the project.”

Looking back, the 58-year-old architect calls himself lucky for not undertaking a formal education in automotive design. Perhaps going after his calling in the most direct way wouldn’t have had the same effect that unravelled for him by choosing architecture. Inevitably, studying architecture with a specialisation in industrial design exposed him not only to a deep understanding of the world we inhabit but also to his first love, i.e. cars. Having been born in 1965—a year that gave rise to several dream cars of the future that immensely intrigued him, his world collided with icons from the postmodern architecture of the 50s and 60s that stirred his interest in good design, form, and space.

Manzoni believes that a certain rhythm and defined design timeline save one from the risk of losing passion in the creative process. A two-time Compasso d’Oro winner explains his standing by saying, "When you work for such an incredible brand that comes with a great heritage, you must be very conscious about what excellence means. […] Even if all our cars are so successful in the market and there’s such a high recognition of our work, I always think what about the next 30, 40 years? How our cars will be perceived in the future? But we work very fast not because we want it but because it’s a necessity. There is a very clear creative engineering process at Ferrari which has certain milestones that we have to respect. It’s fast but it’s correct. I think we as Italians like to work proactively, not slowly, but in a passionate and proactive way.”

Every project at the Ferrari Stile Centre follows the dualities of speed and slowness: embarking on a destiny of timeless design via fairly accelerated processes. Every Ferrari comes from a dream and Manzoni believes his job is to find the route between the dream and reality while making sure the manifestation of a technical product never loses out on the beauty of its original idea. Under his design leadership, Ferrari has produced several icons which include LaFerrari, F12 TDF, FXX-K, Roma, Monza SP1/SP2, 296 GTB, 812 GTS, and Daytona SP3.

Manzoni clarifies that once he is out of office, he likes to see everything but cars. Architecture and art allow him to create a healthy distance from work. A flaneur at heart, visiting new places, observing their genius loci, and tracing the inspiration of their creators tick him.

More in the conversation, the spirited designer walks STIR through the one-off design of the Ferrari 812 Competizione aka The Sketch Car that “connects the beginning and end of the creative process,” in addition to giving a peek into his extensive visits to modernist buildings, postcards of which dot his popular Instagram account. We also discover why jazz stirs his soul and fuels the rigour of everything that he does, and also experience the joy of seeing an icon come alive on paper, sketched meticulously by none other than the Italian extraordinaire.

Tap on the cover video to watch the interview.