AR Gallery Vol. 02

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80’s
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OPENING

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DESIGNERS

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TITO AGNOLI

Born in 1931 in Lima (Peru), he moved to Italy after the war and received a degree in architecture in
1959. He became an assistant to Gio Ponti and Carlo De Carli. His design output became intense in
the early 1950’s.
In addition to Steiner, for whom he created the Cordoue sofa, he worked for others, including Arflex,
Cinova, Lema, Matteo Grassi, Molteni and Ycami. He won a Neocon Gold Medal in 1986 in Chicago.

840, chair
Tito Agnoli, 1971
MONTINA 

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CARLO BARTOLI

Carlo Bartoli was born in 1931, belongs to that generation who were teenagers at the end of the war: learning from Italian
masters of architecture and design of that unsettled period, such as friend and project partner Luciano Baldessari, and Marcello
Nizzoli, he graduated in Milano where he opened his practice in 1960. Bartoli started with architecture and interiors, but when
one of the recurrent crisis in the building industry left him short of work, he focused on furniture design. Working first on objects
he himself needed, he developed his design method: starting form the identification of the limits and translating simplicity into
culture. His cooperation with were-to-be reference design brands, led to important products such as the Gaia armchair by
Arflex, in the permanent collection at the MOMA in New York and the design collection of the Milano Triennale and the 4875
chair for Kartell, the first chair in the world to be entirely made of polypropylene, shown in the design collection of the National
Arts Museum, Centre Pompidou in Paris.
Designer of innumerable items for Italian and foreign design brands, Carlo Bartoli was invited to show his works at the Triennale
in Milano, at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, at the Stadt Museum in Köln and in New York, Prague, Hong Kong,
Athens, Buenos Aires, and taught at the Milano Polytechnic University and the ISIA in Firenze and Roma. His designs, based on
essentiality and the research for balance, have been awarded the XXI Compasso d’Oro ADI in 2008 and the Materialica Design
Award (R606Uno chair designed with Fauciglietti Engineering for Segis), the I.D. Design Distinction Award, the Apex Product
Design Award, the Red Dot - Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen and IF Award for Good Industrial Design (Breeze armchair for
Segis), IF Award (Tube sofa for Rossi di Albizzate) and the 2010 Good Design Award (Sol table for Bonaldo).
A deep understanding of the context and the willingness to use technologies creatively to get “good” objects, produced
items which in several cases have also been market successes. The taste for precision and the knowledge of technology led
him to design also several small items as handles, where the attention for detail is essential. Since 1999 Bartoli Design, team
comprised of Carlo, Paolo and Anna Bartoli, continue the design research that was begun by Carlo Bartoli in 1960, also taking
care of the art directions for some companies and developing architecture projects, environmental issues, urban planning and
renewal of town areas. But their main activity is still and steadily industrial design: in the enduring experiment over chairs, despite
over one hundred have Bartoli’s signature, the search for the archetype is still ongoing.

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4875, chair
Carlo Bartoli, 1974
MUSEO KARTELL

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BLOP, sofa
Carlo Bartoli, 1995
ROSSI DI ALBIZZATE

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CRICKET PLUS, chair
Joe Colombo, 1962
I.C.F.

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JOE COLOMBO

Born in1930 in Milan, where he died in 1971 when he was only 41, he studies at the Brera Art Academy and at the Milan
Politecnico. From 1949 to 1955, he dedicates himself to the avant-garde painting and sculpture: in 1951 he takes part to
informal art exhibitions together with other artist as Fontana, Munari, Baj, Matta, and Dangelo. This experience, together with
his instinctive curiosity and a great vitality, have certainly consolidated his interest for new form of expression, without the
constrictions imposed by traditional outlines.
In 1954, he designs the X Triennale setting and in 1956, he realizes his first building in Milano (Via Rosolino Pilo). During the
following years he runs the family company, a very useful experience that will allow him to establish a pondered and probed
relationship between the spheres of industrial production and design, with a clear vision of the problems linked with the best
acceptance of mass produced works. In 1963, he sets up his own studio in Milan and in 1964, he is awarded the IN-ARCH
prize for the interior design of an hotel in Sardinia. He devotes himself to industrial design, and he is awarded three medals
in occasion of the XIII Triennale: gold for the ACRILICA lamp; silver for COMBI-CENTER and for MINIKITCHEN. Since 1966
he takes part to Domus Ricerca I group at the “Eurodomus” exhibition and increases his activity in Italy and abroad: he gains
relevant awards as the 1967 and 1970 “Compasso d’Oro” and the 1968 “ International Design Award “ in Chicago.
He plans the break area and restoration section for the XIV Triennale where he presents the “Sistema programmabile per abitare “.
His passion for the technology and the influence of ergonomic studies bring him to experiment innovative theories, both in
production and in the studies of relationships between man and objects and man and ambience. He introduced a dynamic
concept and he designed systems, which can be differently coordinated and assembled. “COMBI-CENTER”, “SPYDER” lamp
and “SQUARE PLASTIC SYSTEM “are part of this last group. From 1969 to 1971, he designs multi-functional living machines,
perfectly fitted and easily movable in a space without partition walls: “VISIONA 1”, “ROTO-LIVING”, “CABRIOLET BED” and
“TOTAL FURNISHING UNIT”. These prototypes result from a careful use of advanced technologies and new raw materials.
His projects include some iconic pieces of design as: the Elda Chair, 1963, with fiberglass shell; the Spider lamp, 1965 and the
Coupé Lamp, 1967, the stackable and entirely made of propylene Universale Chair, 1965; the modular furniture series Additional
System, 1967; the Tube Chair, 1969, the reversible Multichair, 1970 and the multifunctional storage unit Boby,1970.
Many of his works are still in production.
His projects have been exhibited in important museums and are part of permanent collections all over the world.

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CABRIOLET BED CONTINENTAL, bookcase
Joe Colombo, 1969 Joe Colombo, 1965
G.A.M.E.C. I.C.F.

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SPIDER floor lamp
Joe Colombo, 1962

OLUCE

MULTICHAIR, armchair
Joe Colombo, 1971
B-LINE

ROBO, cylindrical container
Joe Colombo, 1969
I.C.F.

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D154L, chest of drawers
Carlo De Carli, 1963
Sormani

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CARLO DE CARLI

Carlo De Carli was born in Milan in 1910, he graduated in Architecture from Milan Polytechnic, going on to work at the
Gio Ponti studio. He then opened a studio with Renato Angeli. His collaboration with the Triennale began in 1940, and led to
becoming a member of the Executive Body and Board. The aim of his work in the furniture production sector was to create
links between artisans, universities and the Triennale. He began his university career in 1948 as lecturer on the Bridges course
at the Polytechnic. He won the Compasso d’oro in 1954. He was awarded a professorship in 1961, and from 1965 to 1968
he was head of the Faculty of Architecture. His most significant works include the two houses in via dei Giardinin (with Antonio
Carminati, 1947-50 and 1953-54), the Teatro San Erasmo, also with Carminati, the church of Sant’Ildefonso (1955), the church
of San Gerolamo Emiliani (1958-65) and his collaboration in the design of the of the Quartiere INA-Casa Feltre (1957-60).
De Carli’s most important written works include Architettura Spazio Primario (Milan, 1982) and Creatività.
Riflessioni sull’architettura and work documents (Pandino, 1990).

SELLA, armchair
Carlo de Carli, 1966

SORMANI

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TOLOMEO, floor lamp
De Lucchi-Fassina, 1989
ARTEMIDE

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MICHELE DE LUCCHI

Michele De Lucchi was born in 1951 in Ferrara and graduated in architecture in Florence.
During the period of radical and experimental architecture he was a prominent figure in movements like Cavart, Alchimia and
Memphis. De Lucchi has designed lamps and furniture for the most known Italian and European companies. For Olivetti he was
the Director of Design from 1988 to 2002 and he developed experimental projects for Compaq Computers, Philips, Siemens
and Vitra and elaborated various personal theories on the evolution of the workplace. He designed and restored buildings in
Japan for NTT, in Germany for Deutsche Bank, in Switzerland for Novartis, and in Italy for Enel, Olivetti, Piaggio, Poste Italiane,
Telecom Italia. In 1999 he was appointed to renovate some of ENEL’s (the Italian Electricity Company) power plants.
For Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Bundesbahn, Enel, Poste Italine, Telecom Italia, Hera, Intesa Sanpaolo and at other Italian and
foreign banks he has collaborated on the evolution of a corporate image, introducing technical and aesthetic innovation into the
working environments.
He has curated numerous art and design exhibitions and has planned buildings for museums as the Triennale di Milano,
the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome, the Neues Museum in Berlin, the Fondazione Cini in Venice and the Gallerie d’Italia,
Piazza Scala in Milan. In the last years he developed many architectural projects for private and public client in Georgia, as
Ministry of Internal Affairs and the bridge of Peace in Tbilisi, recently unveiled. His professional work has always gone side-
by-side with a personal exploration of design, technology and crafts. In 1990 he founded Produzione Privata, a small-scale
company concern through which Michele De Lucchi designs products that are made using artisan techniques and crafts.
From 2004 he has been sculpturing little wooden houses with the chain saw to create the essentiality of the architectural style.
His Studio, aMDL architetto Michele De Lucchi S.r.l., has its office in Milan. In 2003 the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris
acquired a considerable number of  his works. Selections of his products are exhibited in the most important design museums
in Europe, United States and Japan. In 2000 he was appointed Officer of the Italian Republic by President Ciampi, for services
to design and architecture. In 2001 he has been nominated Professor at the Design and Art Faculty at the University in Venice.
In 2006 he received the Honorary Doctorate from Kingston University, for his contribution to “living quality”. In 2008 he was
nominated Professor at the Design Faculty of the Politecnico of Milan and Member of the Accademia Nazionale di San Luca in
Rome. In 2009 he received  the Golden Fleece Order and in 2010  the Presidential Order of Excellency by President of Georgia,
Mikheil Saakashvili.

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DINAH, chest of drawers
Shiro Kuramata, 1970
CAPPELLINI

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SHIRO KURAMATA

Born in Tokyo in 1934, Shiro Kuramata studied architecture at Tokyo Polytechnic until 1953 and then spent a year working for
the Japanese furniture manufacturer Teikokukizai. Shiro Kuramata subsequently studied interior decoration until 1956 at the
Kuwazawa Institute of Design.
From 1957 until 1963 Shiro Kuramata worked for the Maysuya department store in Tokyo. In 1965 Shiro Kuramata founded
a design practice in Tokyo. He designed furniture and, as an interior decorator, designed more than three hundred bars and
restaurants. In 1977 Shiro Kuramata became famous overnight worldwide for his “Drawer in an Irregular Form”, a piece of
storage furniture with a sinuous S-curve as its signature feature, made of ash stained black with drawer fronts lacquered white.
In the 1980’s, Shiro Kuramata again caused a sensation with designs executed in unusual materials.
The “Miss Blanche” chair of transparent acrylic glass into which red paper roses have been molded, was a tour de force by
Shiro Kuramata, a highly original and poetic piece of furniture. Another piece of Shiro Kuramata seat furniture is the 1986
“How High the Moon”, notable for voluminous forms realized in nickel-plated expanded metal, sheet metal slotted and stretched
into a mesh or lattice to achieve an astonishingly light and airy transparency.
In 1976 Shiro Kuramata designed the “Glass chair”, made entirely of slabs of glass glued together. In the 1980’s, Shiro Kuramata
designed several pieces of furniture for Memphis, which are both more sophisticated and, aesthetically speaking, reticent than
most other designs produced by Memphis.
Shiro Kuramata’s Memphis designs include the “Kyoto” table (1983) of stained concrete and “Sally” (1987), a table made of
metal and broken glass.
From 1984 Shiro Kuramata designed for the Issey Miyake fashion boutiques in Paris, Tokyo, and New York. In 1988 Shiro
Kuramata moved his design practice to Paris. His designs are executed by such distinguished firms as Aoshima Shoten,
Cappellini, Fijiko, Ishimaru, Kurosaki, Mhoya Glass Shop, Vitra, and others.

SIDE 1, chest of drawers
Shiro Kuramata, 1970
CAPPELLINI

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ATOLLO, lamp
Vico Magistretti, 1977
OLUCE

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VICO MAGISTRETTI

Vico Magistretti was born in Milan in 1920.
The versatile Italian architect Vico Magistretti is chiefly known as a designer. Vico Magistretti designed a great many furnishings,
lighting, ceramics and objects made of plastic. Vico Magistretti’s designs invariably link sculptural elegance with technical
sophistication. Vico Magistretti started out studying at the Champ Universitaire Italien de Lausanne in Switzerland, where he took
courses in architecture and urban planning. From 1940 to 1945 Vico Magistretti studied at Milan Polytechnic, where he took
his diploma in architecture. Vico Magistretti built private houses, office buildings, churches and hotels. From 1946 Magistretti
worked as a freelance designer for companies such as Artemide, Cassina, Conran, De Padova, Flou, FontanaArte, Fritz Hansen,
Kartell, Knoll, O-Luce, Schiffini, and Campeggi. From the 1960’s Vico Magistretti designed furniture and objects of plastic.
His “Telegono” table lamp dates from 1968. Magistretti designed “Selene”, a plastic stackable chair moulded in one piece for
Artemide in 1969. The Magistretti chairs “Gaudì” and “Vicario” were made in 1970. In 1977 Vico Magistretti designed “Atollo”,
a metal table lamp, and that same year the folding shelving system “Nuvola Rossa”. In 1983 Vico Magistretti designed
“Veranda”, a convertible sofa that, like his earlier (1973) “Maralunga”, is equipped with an adjustable headrest. No matter what
materials were used, Vico Magistretti always attached great importance to high quality workmanship. For a design solution to be
long-lived and of high quality, Vico Magistretti felt it had to be both beautiful and useful. From 1980 Vico Magistretti taught at the
Royal College of Art in London, becoming an Honorary Fellow in 1983 and, in 1996 a Senior Fellow.

SILVER, chair
Vico Magistretti, 1989

DE PADOVA

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VIDUN, table base
Vico Magistretti, 1987
DE PADOVA

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ECLISSE, lamp
Vico Magistretti, 1967

ARTEMIDE

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I SOLI, table
Alessandro Mendini, 1980
ALCHIMIA ITALIA

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ALESSANDRO MENDINI

Architect Alessandro Mendini was born in Milan in 1931. He has directed the magazines Casabella, Modo and Domus.
Monographs on his own work and his projects with the Alchimia group have been published in different languages.
His focus is on objects, furniture, concept interiors, paintings, installations and architecture. International collaborations include
Alessi, Philips, Cartier, Swatch, Hermès and Venini.
Alessandro Mendini is design and image consultant to different kinds of companies, also in the Far East.
He is an honorary member of the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem.
In 1979 and 1981 he was awarded the Compasso d’Oro of design; in France he carries the title of Chevalier des Arts et
des Lettres; he is the recipient of an honorary title from the Architectural League of New York and was awarded an honorary
doctorate degree from the Milan Polytechnic.
At the Universität für angewandte Kunst in Vienna, Mendini has worked as professor of design. He is an honorary professor
at the Academic Council of Gangzhou Academy of Fine Arts in China. His work is featured in many museums and private
collections. With his brother Francesco Mendini, he opened Atelier Mendini in Milan in 1989, designing the Alessi factory in
Omegna; the new Olympic pool in Trieste; a series of subway stops in Naples; the refurbishment of the Naples City Hall, the
Byblos Art Hotel Villa Amistà in Verona, Italy; a tower in Hiroshima, Japan; the Groninger Museum in Holland; a district of
Lugano, Switzerland; the Madsack office building in Hanover, a commercial building in Lörrach, Germany and other buildings
in Europe and the USA.

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FALKLAND, lamp
Bruno Munari, 1964
DANESE MILANO

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BRUNO MUNARI

Bruno Munari was born in Milan in 1907. He died in Milan on 30 September 1998. Munari is a painter, sculptor, graphic artist,
industrial designer, as also a theoretician and author of books and treatises of great expositive clarity and divulgative efficacy.
He started his activity in 1927 when, with Marinetti and Prampolini, he took part in the so-called “Second Futurism” exhibition
at the Galleria Pesaro in Milan, attracting attention because of his knowledge of the more lively foreign movements. In 1932
he produced his photograms, which reflect the tendency of Moholy-Nagy and of Man Ray’s rayographs. In 1935 his “Useless
Machines” obtained a great success; their politely pedagogic intent was combined with the refined irony of their extreme
mechanism. His interest in kinetic art and large-scale production of intelligent objects were already implicit in those imaginative
creations of the useless. In 1945 he designed the first motor-driven kinetic object, Ora X, with a clockwork movement and
constantly changing combination of transparent colored sectors. Also evident was his interest in experimentation and industrial
design of an intellectual rather than technological nature. In 1948 he took part in the foundation of the “Concrete Art Movement”
(MAC) and exhibited the first “Illegible Books.” In 1950 he produced the “Negative-Positive” paintings: geometrical, in flat colors
anyone of which could be equally well the background or the foreground, they constituted an important analysis of perceptive
ambiguity. In 1952 he issued the “Machinism” manifesto, proposing an organic, total art,
in continuous transformation. In the same year he produced his Proof of Arrhythmia, a spring mechanism producing an effect of
irregular movement within a regular rhythmic movement. In 1953-1954 he carried out his first research on the use of polarized
light. In this period he designed the first fountains in which water is an essential element: following pre-established paths and
obliged to flow at different speeds, the water gives rise to a whole series of different effects. Between 1956 and 1958 he
produced the “R.T.O.I.,” theoretical reconstructions of imaginary objects on the basis of surviving fragments of uncertain origin
and serving an unknown purpose. Likewise ironic are his “Travel Sculptures” of 1958, small, light and foldable. In 1962, for
Olivetti, he organized the first traveling exhibition of programmed art. In 1964 he produced a series of images obtained with
the use of a Xerox photocopying machine. Long interested in the world of children, he produced a number of entertaining and
didactic books, some for the birth to six-year-old age group. His now famous Cockpit is an inhabitable structure serving to give
a child a sense of his own space. His most recent activities have related mainly to industrial design and teaching. His works have
appeared in numerous group exhibitions in Italy and abroad and have aroused particular interest above all in Japan. Munari’s
way of working, which enables him to arrive at great results with the use of very limited means, is in fact very close to Japanese
spirituality. In 1985 he was awarded the Lincei Prize. Munari’s books have been translated into many languages. They instruct by
means of play, when they are not specific treatises on design and visual communication. They have been used as textbooks by
schools and universities.

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Ricostruzione teorica di un oggetto immaginario, screenprint
Bruno Munari, 1984
DANESE MILANO

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ORGONE, sculpture
Marc Newson
CAPPELLINI

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MARC NEWSON

Marc Newson was born in Sydney in 1963. He is an Australian designer known most notably for creating unique household
goods, furniture, and interior spaces from unusual materials.
Newson attended the Sydney College of the Arts and graduated in 1984 with a degree in jewelry and sculpture. The following
year he won a grant from the Crafts Board of the Australia Council, which enabled him to create his breakthrough piece, the
aluminum and fiberglass Lockheed Lounge (1986). This was the first of several limited-edition chairs. Like many of his later
furniture pieces, it is made of atypical materials. It has a seamless exterior and a Modernist yet somewhat retro form variously
described as biomorphic or zoomorphic. In 1987 Newson moved to Japan, where he worked mostly with the design company
Idée, creating among other objects the Charlotte chair (1987), the Super Guppy lamp (1987), the Embryo chair (1988), the
three-legged carbon-fibre Black Hole table (1988), the Orgone lounge (1989), the Felt chair (1989), and the Wicker chair (1990).
In 1991 Newson moved to Paris, where he designed household products, first for Philippe Starck and later for Iittala in Finland
and Alessi, Magis, and Flos in Italy. He formed a partnership with the Swiss businessman Oliver Ike to create Ikepod, a watch
company, in 1994. Newson’s award-winning shapes and watchcases of gold, silver, and titanium, each signed and numbered,
made his watches among the most exclusive pieces of jewelry in the world. (The company was relaunched in 2005, with
different partners.) In 1997 Newson moved to London, where he began to design vehicles, among them the MN01 bicycle for
Biomega (1999), the 021C concept car for Ford (1999), and the livery of a privately owned jet, the Falcon 900B (1999). In 2006
Newson was named creative director of Qantas Airways, for which he designed luxurious first-class lounges in the Melbourne
and Sydney international airports. In Britain he was named (2006) Royal Designer for Industry.
Newson’s work is included in the collections of a number of major museums, among the most notable of which are the Design
Museum in London; the Musée des Arts Decoratifs, Paris; the Powerhouse Museum of Sydney; the San Francisco Museum of
Modern Art; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York City. Newson also has had solo exhibitions at many other prestigious
galleries and museums and across the globe.

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MIRELLA, sewing machine
Marcello Nizzoli, 1957
NECCHI SPA

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