Alessi Birdie Kettle

Alessi's kettle with the bird-shaped whistle on the spout was designed by Michael Graves in 1985. When water boils, a small plastic bird opens its beak and sings, which is either charming or irritating depending on your relationship to whimsy in kitchen objects. Conical stainless steel body, sky blue handle, and a red bird make up the kettle's shape. The primary colors against polished steel give it a toy-like quality that's deliberate because Graves was designing for a company that believed everyday objects should provoke an emotional response. Alessi has commissioned dozens of designers to create household objects that treat function as a starting point rather than an endpoint. Producing corkscrews shaped like dancing figures, lemon squeezers shaped like spiders, and salt shakers shaped like angels. At about $130, the kettle does nothing a $20 version cannot do. But The daily interaction with an object that makes you smile when it whistles is a form of value that is hard to price. Continuous production for nearly 40 years suggests the market for cheerful kitchenware is more durable than the market for minimalist alternatives. I saw one at a friend's apartment and the bird whistle caught me off guard because I did not expect a kettle to have personality. The moment of delight it produced made me understand Alessi's design philosophy better than any description could.