Designers Presentation PDF

Designers Presentation Miami. Coral Gables. Chicago. Los Angeles. San Francisco. Menlo Park January 2023 Designer Piero Lissoni Piero Lissoni Seregno, Italy Known as a master of contemporary design, Piero Lissoni’s work is far-reaching and emotionally riveting. An industrious architect and de...

Designers Presentation Miami. Coral Gables. Chicago. Los Angeles. San Francisco. Menlo Park January 2023 Designer Piero Lissoni Piero Lissoni Seregno, Italy Known as a master of contemporary design, Piero Lissoni’s work is far-reaching and emotionally riveting. An industrious architect and designer, Lissoni also serves as the art director for many leading international design brands, including Boffi, De Padova, Living Divani, and Porro. He approaches his work with a mastery of proportion and an acute sensitivity for subtlety that distinguishes the common from the insightful, with serenely expressed lines dancing in harmony with balanced volumes and sleek forms. Winner of numerous awards including the Compasso d’Oro of 2014, Lissoni boasts a client base that encompasses many of the world’s most renowned design companies, including Alessi, Cappellini, Cassina, Flos, Fritz Hansen, Kartell, Poltrana Frau, and Tecno. Designer Piero Lissoni Box Lounge | Living Divani Designer Piero Lissoni Minimo Table | Porro Designer Piero Lissoni Conservatorium Hotel | Amsterdam Designer Patricia Urquiola Patricia Urquiola Oviedo, Spain A prolific and internationally celebrated designer, known for exceptional, colorful designs, majestic architectural projects, and stunning exhibitions, Patricia Urquiola has graced the world with work that sings a vivacity and originality without compromising elegance and sophistication. Born in Oviedo, Spain, she founded her own studio in Milan in 2001, after working and collaborating with some of the most revered masters of Italian design like Achille Castiglioni and Vico Magistretti. Since 2015, she has been the Creative Director for the leading Italian brand Cassina. Renowned for her whimsical yet functional approach to design, her work has won multiple awards and can be seen in museums all over the world, including MoMA New York, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Vitra Design Museum, and Musee des Arts decoratifs in Paris. Designer Piero Lissoni New Mandarin Oriental Hotel | Barcelona Designer Piero Lissoni Missoni Flagship Store | Milan Designer Piero Lissoni Maia Collection | Kettal Designer Antonio Citterio Antonio Citterio Meda, Italy Having decided on his career at age 13, Antonio Citterio has today become one of the most renowned and highly venerated architects and designers on the international stage, producing work that exudes a liberated elegance cloaked in graceful simplicities and streamlined forms, truly innovative and always emotionally centered. A proponent of rational design, Citterio pays homage to modern masters like Eileen Gray, Charles and Ray Eames, and George Nelson with design that values clean lines and expressed tactility for an experience that captivates the eye and envelopes the body. Winner of the Compasso d’Oro in 1987 and 1995, his products are part of the permanent collection of the MoMA in New York and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Designer Piero Lissoni La Bella Vita Tower | Taiwan Designer Piero Lissoni San Babila | Italy Designer Piero Lissoni Charlotte Chair | B&B Italia Designer Piero Lissoni Charles Sofa | B&B Italia Designer Gio Ponti Gio Ponti Milan, Italy The Italian architect, designer, and artist Gio Ponti enchanted the world with over sixty years of structures, design objects, and cerebral contributions to the international design landscape that shaped how we viewed design in the 20th century, as sophisticated, economic, democratic, and modern. Over 100 architectural works carry his distinctive signature all over the world, and his vast influence in interior design resonates still today with innovative lightness and high-quality construction. A passionate advocate for an Italian-style art of living, Ponti founded the design magazine Domus in 1928 and helped create the Compasso d’Oro in 1954. By removing ornament in design, Ponti embraced a formal simplification where structure and style meet in delightful repose, a synergy of elegant beauty and clean functionality. Designer Piero Lissoni Casa Laporte, via Brin | Milan Designer Piero Lissoni Pirelli Tower | Milan Designer Piero Lissoni Superleggera Chair | Cassina Designer Piero Lissoni Distex armchair | Cassina Designer Charlotte Perriand Charlotte Perriand Paris, France For Charlotte Perriand, better design creates a better society, with interior compositions conceived as a new way of living in harmony with one’s most earnest sensibilities and profound dreams, a union of emotional veracity and the adopted spaces that surround us. A true reformer of interior design, Perriand collaborated with modern pioneers Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, leaving a definable mark on the avant-garde cultural movement of the early 20th century that heralded intense changes in aesthetic values and reimagined everyday life through the lens of modern sensitivities, with a sincere loyalty to the principles of humane and innovative rationalism. She is known for bringing a distinct dimension of warm humaneness to Le Corbusier’s often cold rationalism, with contours and colors cleansed in an atmosphere of spirited serenity, acutely balanced and keenly modern. Designer Piero Lissoni Chaise Longue LC4 | Cassina Designer Piero Lissoni Tunisie Bookcase Designer Piero Lissoni LC7 Swivel Armchair | Cassina Designer Piero Lissoni Les Arcs Ski Resort | France Designer Gerrit Rietveld Gerrit Rietveld Utrecht, Neth Dutch architect and furniture designer Gerrit Rietveld was a pioneer of modern design; finding that handcrafted furniture of the time was too heavy, too expensive, and too labor-intensive, he revolutionized the way modern objects are designed and produced by machines, so they are simpler in style, unencumbered by that which is not essential, and more readily available to be mass produced. His distinctly vibrant and efficient early style is closely associated with De Stijl, a modernist art movement with followers like Piet Mondrian and Theo van Doesburg who made generous use of primary colors and coy gemoetries, as exemplified in Rietveld’s now iconic Red-And-Blue Armchair and in the interplay of right angle forms, floating planes of color, and lines at his masterpiece, the Schroeder House. Designer Piero Lissoni Red And Blue Chair | Cassina Designer Piero Lissoni Rietveld Schröder House | Utrecht Designer Piero Lissoni 280 Zig Zag Chair | Cassina Designer Le Corbusier Le Corbusier Cap Martin, France Widely regarded as perhaps the most important architect of the 20th century, Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris, otherwise known by the pseudonym Le Corbusier, was not only a talented architect, but a divisive urban planner, a provocative writer, consummate polemicist, and gifted designer who laid the foundations for the International Style, merging functionalism with a strong sense of bold sculptural expressionism for a modern aesthetic embraced by design enthusiasts and architects to this day. Invoking his taste for asceticism and love for sculptural forms, Le Corbusier was the first architect to use rough-cast concrete. As of 2016, 17 of his architectural works were named World Heritage Sites by UNESCO. The same modernist ideals found in his architecture can be seen expressed in his designs for the home, simple and streamlined, sculptural and characterized by minimalist form. Now produced by Cassina, Le Corbusier’s classic designs live on, bringing joy and quiet composure to homes across the globe. Designer Piero Lissoni Villa Savoye | France Designer Piero Lissoni Unité d’habitation | France Designer Piero Lissoni Notre Dame du Haut | France Designer Piero Lissoni LC1 Armchair | Cassina Designer Vico Magistretti Vico Magistretti Milan, Italy For over four decades in the last half of the 20th century, Vico Magistretti’s fearless work dominated the design scene in Milan, producing icons of modern design that are now found in the collections of some of the most important design museums all over the world, echoing a clean-cut simplicity and timeless elegance that earned him accolades and donned him a master of modernity. As an architect, town planner, industrial designer, and venerated lecturer, Magistretti left an indelible mark on the international design landscape, promoting inexhaustible, thorough research into the culture of a project and the innovative experimentations with materials and space for work that eschews trends, exacting in proportion and rigorous in form. It is no wonder then that over 80 percent of his work is still produced today, gracing homes across the globe with a self-assured style that leaves maximum impact. Designer Piero Lissoni Maralunga Sofa | Cassina Designer Piero Lissoni Nuvola Rossa Bookcase | Cassina Designer Piero Lissoni Eclisse Lamp | Artemide Designer Franco Albini Franco Albini Robbiate, Italy Franco Albini was major figure in the Rationalist movement, a style of architecture and design that emerged after the first World War and values volume over mass, the use of lightweight, industrial materials, a rejection of ornamentation, and a repetitious use of modular forms with flat surfaces alternating with glass. Born in Robbiate, Italy and trained in Milan, Albini began his professional journey working for Gio Ponti before starting his own practice in 1930. With his innovative, functional design, he found poetic purity in raw, inexpensive materials and produced refined pieces inspired by a minimalist aesthetic. An architect, university instructor, and industrial designer, Albini created distinctly modern furniture that united skilled Italian craft traditions with new forms of modern production, instilling a logical consistency, an extreme purity of expression, and an exceptional ethical and historical integrity with dignified grace and a timeless sophistication. Designer Piero Lissoni Albini Desk | Knoll Designer Piero Lissoni Margherita Chair | Knoll Designer Piero Lissoni Villa Pestarini | Milan Designer Mario Bellini Mario Bellini Milan, Italy Internationally renowned for architecture and design that speaks to unique ability to move assuredly between diverse design languages, Mario Bellini’s work oscillates between rigid geometries and dynamic curves, between artificial and natural materials, and between structural solutions and sustainable choices. Working in the fields of architecture and urban planning, industrial, product, and furniture design since the 1960s, Bellini makes architectural elements of furniture, redesigning spaces that leaves users with a sense of freedom and a welcoming balance of materiality and comfort. Winner of 8 Compasso d’Oro awards, Bellini also boasts 25 works in the permanent design collection at the MoMA New York, which dedicated a personal retrospective to him in 1987. He was also awarded the Gold Medal at the 2015 Milan Triennale for his career in architecture. His work continues to inspire audiences across the globe today, with his most recent architectural endeavors in China and the Gulf area. Designer Piero Lissoni Camaleonda Sofa | B&B Italia Designer Piero Lissoni Cab Chair | Cassina Designer Piero Lissoni National Gallery of Victoria International | Australia Miyazaki, Japan Designer Takahama Kazuhide Takahama Kazuhide Born on the Japanese Island of Kyushu, the quietly charismatic Kazuhide Takahama studied architecture at the Tokyo Institute of Technology before joining the practice of Kazuo Fuioka. In 1957, he oversaw the design of Japan’s first pavilion at the Milan Triennale, where he met and began a life-long collaboration with entrepreneur Dino Gavina, who later convinced him to work out of Italy where he interacted with some of the world’s most renowned designers and developed his own well-defined design language in an environment abundant with cultural exchanges. With an acclaimed talent for fusing Eastern and Western design principles, where serenity and simplicity meets modern artistic sensibilities, inspired by Dada and Surrealism, Takahama’s work features clean lines, formal restraint, and a zen-like sensuality. Designer Piero Lissoni Djuna Side Table | Cassina Designer Piero Lissoni Antella Table | Cassina Designer Piero Lissoni Saori | Nemo Lighting Designer Carlo Scarpa Carlo Scarpa Venice, Italy Inspired by the materiality, history, and landscape of Venetian culture, and influenced by the serene minimalism of the Japanese aesthetic, Carlo Scarpa trained as an Italian architect and produced works profoundly sensitive to the changes of his time, entrenched in a deeply sensuous material imagination. He joined the world of industrial design in the 1960s after meeting Dino Gavina, and later became president of his eponymous company, combining time-honored crafts with modern manufacturing processes. Collaborating with glassmakers in Murano, he also designed jars and chandeliers for Cappellini and Venini. Designer Piero Lissoni Olivetti Showroom, Venecia | Italy Designer Piero Lissoni Museo di Castelvecchio, Verona | Italy Designer Piero Lissoni Doge Rectangular Table | Cassina Designer Piero Lissoni Rialto Bookcase | Cassina Designer Tobia Scarpa Tobia Scarpa Venice, Italy Known for furniture design that seamlessly blends functionality and cutting-edge technologies with cultural history and an ethereal beauty, Italian architect Tobia Scarpa has produced notable design objects with his wife and collaborator Afra Scarpa since 1957, winning numerous awards for his work including the Compasso d’Oro in 1969 and the International Forum Design Hanover Award in 1992. His pieces for Italian and international brands like B&B Italia, Flos, Knoll, Cassina, Bennetton, and Fabbian are included in the collections of cultural institutions all over the world, including the MoMA New York, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Louvre in Paris, and Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Designer Piero Lissoni Soriana Sofa | Cassina Designer Piero Lissoni Carlota Armchair | Cassina Designer Piero Lissoni Ponzano Veneto – Industrial architecture – Benetton Group | Ponzano Designer Jaime Hayon Jaime Hayon Valencia, Spain Born in Madrid in 1974, Jaime Hayon often blurs the lines between art, decoration, and design, heralding a renaissance in well-crafted, sophisticated objects that donned him a visionary in contemporary design by Times magazine. Winner of numerous awards, Hayon has produced colorful and elegant furnishings for Cassina, Fritz Hansen and Magis, and riveting lighting fixtures for Parachila, Metalarte, and Swarovski, always with a refined edge and a touch of whimsy. Hayon has also created comprehensive interiors for leading hotels, museums, restaurants, and retail establishments all over the world. Now with offices operating in Italy, Spain, and Japan, Hayon explores expressive and novel forms while remaining committed to fine artisan craftsmanship, rigorous details, and a passion for play. Designer Piero Lissoni Fanv Sofa | Fritz Hansen Designer Piero Lissoni Ro Armchair | Fritz Hansen Designer Piero Lissoni Reaction Poetique Centerpieces | Cassina Designer Rodolfo Dordoni Rodolfo Dordoni Milan, Italy Architect and designer Rodolfo Dordoni hails from a Milanese tradition of design that produced some of the most highly celebrated minds of all time. Characterized by a rational approach, honoring that which is essential and elegant with precise geometries and unwavering high quality, Dordoni’s works have received numerous awards and accolades, including the 2011 National Award for Innovation, Honorable Mention at the 2014 Compasso d’Oro, and the Archiproducts Design Awards. Over the years, Dordoni has led the art direction for notable design companies like Artemide, Cappellini, FontanaArte, Minotti, and Roda while designing interior furnishings for numerous brands worldwide. In 2005, he founded, alongside Alessandro Acerbi and Luca Zaniboni, the Dordoni Architects Studio, where he focuses energy on architectural planning and interior design that expresses geometric rigor with spirited imagination. Designer Piero Lissoni 457 Boboli Table | Cassina Designer Piero Lissoni Dress Up Sofa | Cassina Designer Piero Lissoni Aliante Bookcase | Cappellini Glasglow, Scotland Designer Charles Mackintosh Charles Mackintosh Favoring simple forms and natural materials over elaboration and artifice, Scottish-born Charles Mackintosh became known as a pioneer of the early modernist movement in design, influenced by the calming and organic feel of Japanese-inspired designs while developing his own style, a merging of strong right angles with subtle curves. In the late 19th and early 20th century, this visionary architect and painter crafted furnishings that relied on the use of texture, light and shadow in place of patterns and ornament, often with geometric elements juxtaposed with organic shapes informed by architecture and unorthodox interiors. Although he passed in 1928, his aesthetic lives on in many modernist-inspired designs seen today, and his appreciation for the simple and the straightforward is shared by contemporary visionaries who lean on the essentials for a timeless aesthetic. Designer Piero Lissoni Hill House Chair | Cassina Designer Piero Lissoni Ingram Chair | Cassina Designer Meret Oppenheim Meret Oppenheim Berlin, Germany Painter and sculpture Meret Oppenheim was immersed in the Surrealism movement of the mid 1930s, a rare individual asserting her femininity among male dominated works of the time, unconventional and thought-provoking, Known for her assemblages, sculptural works that brought domestic, everyday objects into sometimes disturbing and often humorous juxtaposition, Oppenheim unleashed the furtive imagination of unconscious dreams into her pieces full of wry wit and dark humor, hoping to disrupt the veneer of civilized society, revealing the emotionality that lies just beneath the surface. With a mixture of bemusement and fascination, she transformed items traditionally associated with feminine refinement and demureness into confounding sculpture that challenges reason by presenting otherwise mundane things in unexpected ways, allowing others to reimagine how design objects inhabit our everyday. Designer Piero Lissoni Traccia Side Table | Cassina Designer Piero Lissoni Cavour Ottoman | Poltrona Fraud Cyprus and London, England Designer Michael Anastassiades Michael Anastassiades With a practice that contemplates both cutting-edge industrial production with traditional artisan techniques, Michael Anastassiades is a Cypriot-born, Londonbased designer known for products that articulate architectural space with simple, geometric forms, reflective surfaces, and experimental harmonies that appear to float independently and interact remarkably in the spaces they inhabit. With transcendental lighting designs, Anastassiades work is featured in the permanent collections of the MoMA New York, the FRAC Center in Orleans, France, and the V&A Museum and Crafts Council in London. Inspired by nature, the history of Modernism, art, everyday life, personal memories, and the archaic references of his native Cyprus, his poetic yet exacting translation of material, technology and function produce timeless forms that elevate the surroundings they grace, with sensuality, purity, and material luxury. Designer Piero Lissoni Mobile Chandelier Collection | Michael Anastassiades Designer Piero Lissoni Get Set | Michael Anastassiades Designer Eileen Gray Eileen Gray Enniscorthy, Ireland A remarkable architect and designer of objects that inspire precision and serenity with clean lines and simple forms, Eileen Gray was an early pioneer of the Modern Movement in Europe, born in Ireland, trained in London, and working out of France. With furniture made of chrome, steel tubes, and glass, and an aesthetic that harmonized fluid lines with robust geometries, Gray’s work more closely followed the language of the De Stijl movement, steering away from excessive ornamentation and the flowing, leafy lines of Art Nouveau. Timeless, formidable, and forever elegant, her work still resonates today in homes across the globe, bringing a sense of composure and clarity to interiors in search of subtle beauty and clean modernity. Designer Piero Lissoni Adjustable Table E 1027 | Classicon Designer Piero Lissoni Monte Carlo Sofa | Classicon Designer Piero Lissoni Tube Light Floor Lamp | Classicon Designer Sebastian Herkner Sebastian Herkner Offenbach am Main, Germany According to Sebastian Herkner, there is a sensitivity and identity to the young designer’s work that “emphasizes the function, the material, and the detail. I transport and interpret characteristics from various contexts of society and culture and implement them in new artifacts. This character infuses the most everyday objects with respect and personality. In this manner, seemingly contrary things can experience esteem.” The recipient of numerous accolades for his work, including the most prestigious award in Milan, the 2021 EDIDA award for Best Designer of the Year, Herkner has been attracting attention for exceptional work that boasts a true flair for color, authentic materials and textures, and an unconditional love for traditional craftsmanship paired with technological know-how, even at this early stage in his career. Designer Piero Lissoni Bell Coffee Table | Classicon Designer Piero Lissoni Oda Lamp | Pulpo Designer Piero Lissoni Bell Lamp | Classicon Designer Gaetano Pesce Gaetano Pesce La Spezia, Italy Throughout his over 50 year-long career, Gaetano Pesce has seen success as an architect, urban planner, and industrial designer, with work that investigated the function and form of objects with wit and style, always filtered through the lens of human emotion while challenging accepted standards of abstraction, uniformity, and homogeneity. He added a warmth to modernism, connecting art and society to design with organic forms and vivid colors in products for B&B Italia, Cassina, and Vitra. His perspective is considered broad and humanistic, marked by an inventiveness of form and material while incorporating craftspecialization, history, humor, and the human need for connection in his designs. Designer Piero Lissoni Up1 | B&B Italia Designer Piero Lissoni Up Lounge Chair with Ottoman | B&B Italia Moloch Floor Lamp Toulouse, France Designer Jean-Marie Massaud Jean-Marie Massaud With an ability to integrate comfort and elegance, clean forms with generosity and distinction, Jean-Marie Massaud is a visionary of modern luxury, crafting furnishings and objects that are more than functional products but appear as ceremonious sculptures fully integrated into his spatial concept with beauty and emotionalism. Here he finds the perfect balance between the room and the object, linking design to architecture with enchanting designs that are extraordinary and full of life. His work is upheld by research into the senses and vital emotion resulting in notable success in various design fields, from architecture to furniture design and industrial products, working closely with many reputable companies like Armani, Axor, Cappellini, Cassina, Lancôme, Renault, and Poltrona Frau. Designer Piero Lissoni Angelo and Angela Vase | Glas Italia Designer Piero Lissoni I-Beam | Glas Italia Designer Piero Lissoni Yale Sofa | MDF Italia Designer Jeffrey Bernett Jeffrey Bernett New York City, United States With a commitment to exacting details and a sophisticated simplicity of pure form and refined tactility, Jeffrey Bernett is an accomplished designer who has received multiple accolades in various disciplines including architecture, interior design, lighting, transportation design, graphics, and fashion. His very first furniture collection received the Editor’s Award for “Best In Show” at the 1996 International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York. Highly versatile with a keen sense for business and manufacturing, Bernett was the first American to be hired by a number of major European companies like Authentics, B&B Italia, Boffi, Cappellini, Michael Kors, and Viccarbe, where his passion and curiosity for industrial processes and materials met with a captivating aesthetic of expressive lines and balanced proportions. Designer Piero Lissoni Tulip Armchair | B&B Italia Designer Piero Lissoni Tulip Armchair | B&B Italia Designer Piero Lissoni Metropolitan Armchair | B&B Italia Designer Naoto Fukasawa Naoto Fukasawa Kofu, Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan Naoto Fukasawa likes to make objects that are, as he describes, ‘close to the body.’ Design should be a part of the human experience, and the story of how an object came to be is as important to him as the final design. His work is often informed by lines and curves found in nature. Fukasawa has received more than 40 international awards, and his work is a part of the permanent collection at the MoMA in New York. His clear and focused approach to minimalism removes the clutter of modern life to leave us with only that which we really need — so well designed, both beautifully and functionally, he imagines a future where we interact with our environment in a more poetic and personal way. Designer Piero Lissoni Hiroshima Armchair | Maruni Designer Piero Lissoni Bent Glass Bench | Glas Italia Designer Piero Lissoni Cloud Sofa | Glas Italia Designer Zaha Hadid Zaha Hadid Baghdad, Iraq Recognized as one of the most notable architects of her time, Zaha Hadid was born in Baghdad, Iraq and studied architecture in London where she worked for her almost 40 year-long career, producing iconic structures like the Vitra Fire Station, Guangzhou Opera House in China, and the Heydar Aliyev Center in Azerbaijan. In 2004, she was the first woman to receive the Pritzker Architecture Prize and in 2010 and 2011, her designs were awarded the Stirling Prize, one of architecture’s highest honors. Hadid imbues her design objects with the same dynamic sense of motion and liberating geometries as seen in her architecture, extending the creative possibilities of material with scale, materiality, and weight, spectacularly energetic, sensuously dramatic, and always timeless. Designer Piero Lissoni Aqua Table | Established & Sons Designer Piero Lissoni Moon Sofa System | B&B Italia Designer Piero Lissoni Cell Centerpiece | Zaha Hadid Design Designer Foster + Partners Foster + Partners London, England Founded in 1967 by Sir Norman Foster, a British architect known for buildings that expressed a sleek, high tech minimalism with open floor plans and inventive use of glass, Foster + Partners is now the largest architectural studio in the United Kingdom with offices across the globe that serve as catalysts for an environmentally sensitive approach to design that fosters a sense of community within a sharp-edge modern aesthetic, innovative and sustainable, with fresh ideas that fuel new ways of living and working. With lighting designs for Lumina and Louis Poulsen, and furniture for Walter Knoll and Vitra, Foster + Partners translates the clean geometrics and technical prowess of its architecture into products that elevate the home environment, classic and contemporary, novel and bewitching. Designer Piero Lissoni Dot Suspension Lamp | Foster & Partners Designer Piero Lissoni Eve and Eva Table Lamp | Lumina Designer Piero Lissoni Nomos Table | Foster & Partners Designer Jasper Morrison Jasper Morrison London, England Jasper Morrison’s design is characterized by a minimalism that has the appearance of inevitability. The main themes of his work are practicality and comfort arrived at using timeless forms and familiar materials. His work can be found in the permanent collection of institutions across the globe, including British Museum, the V&A Museum in London, the Vitra Design Museum in Germany and the MoMA in New York, and he has received multiple awards including the Compasso d’Oro, Good Design Award, and 12 iF Product Design Awards. Known for a sophisticated cleanness of design marked by subtle grace and simplicity, Morrison’s work has imprinted design history with a poetic modesty like no other, illuminating homes with a purity of form and straightforward functionality that leaves us mesmerized. Designer Piero Lissoni Air Chair | Magis Designer Piero Lissoni Glo Ball | Flos Designer Piero Lissoni Cork Family Stool | Vitra Designer Shiro Kuramata Shiro Kuramata Tokyo, Japan Shiro Kuramata, a Japanese architect, is today considered one of the greatest contemporary designers. Master of interior design, Kuramata is the author of almost metaphysical objects, where oriental symbolism, graphic rigor, rationalism and western design complete and enhance each other reciprocally. On one hand there is Confucianism and the tendency of a "moral" approach to design, on the other the profound influence of western experience, the poetics this generates is unique and unrepeatable. It is meeting of two worlds that speak different languages and move on distant and apparent unreconcilable courses. Attracted by the immaterial essence of things, Kuramata loves irony and paradox and has a great passion for drawers, mysterious containers of secrets and memories concealed hiding places of private surprises. Designer Piero Lissoni Revolving Cabinet | Cappellini Designer Piero Lissoni Solaris Chest | Cappellini Sofa with Arms | Cappellini Designer Guilio Cappellini Guilio Cappellini Milan, Italy Architect, designer, art director, and talent scout of international design excellence, Giulio Cappellini elevated his family business to the world stage in the early 1980s by creating outstanding living spaces through a mix of styles, cultures, and materials in collaboration with some of the most brilliant design minds of our time. In addition to producing works now featured in permanent collections around the world, including MoMA New York, the Centre Pompidou and Musee Des Arts Decoratives in Paris, the Museum Fuer Angewandte Kunst in Koln, the V&A Museum in London, and the Galleria D’Arte Moderna in Rome, Cappellini designs his own work, experimenting with material, colors, and shades for a perfect equilibrium of rationalism and rigor, and honesty in material, function, and design. El Paso Cabinet | Cappellini Luce Table | Cappellini Gong Side Table | Cappellini Lokeren, Belgium Designer Vincent Van Duysen Vincent Van Duysen After studying architecture at Higher Institute of Architecture, Saint-Lucas in Gent, Van Duysen began his career in Milan in the late 80’s, with a design philosophy based on a few, essential principles: purity of materials and colors, luminous spaces, absence of ornamentation, and simplicity. He opened his firm in Antwerp in 1990 and continues to engage in a variety of projects, both commercial and domestic, with forays into object and furniture design. Van Duysen is a reflective thinker with the curiosity of a life-long student. His thoughtfulness manifests itself in a quiet, minimal style. However, his work avoids austerity by embracing creamy whites, warm grays and deep blues, making his design both contemporary and innovative. Ceramic Container with Oak Lid | When Objects Work Portofino Table Surface | B&B Italia Designer Marcel Wanders Marcel Wanders Boxtel, Netherlands Marcel Wanders’ playful demeanor and energy come through in his work, rich in context and backed by a storytelling ability distinguished in his unique emphasis on the design process. Wanders has an impulse to strip design of its elitist tendencies, to work with forms that are universally understood and to use old things in a novel way, rather than straining for something new. Wanders was among the generation of designers and artists that during the 1990s formed the Droog collective of Dutch conceptual designers. His work is now ubiquitous, as he contributes regularly to the leading European contemporary design manufacturers such as B&B Italia, Poliform, Moroso, Flos, Boffi, Cappellini, Droog Design, and Moooi, his own firm. Knotted Lounge Chair | Cappellini Big Shadow Lamps | Cappellini Skygarden Lamp | Flos Designer Philippe Starck Philippe Starck Paris, France Philippe Starck’s success has been built on his ability to translate his sometimes prophetic insight regarding social and cultural changes in Western society into objects, spaces and buildings. The son of an aircraft designer, he has inherited his father’s love of technology and penchant for futuristic design. Driven by his omnivorous curiosity, he has made a name for himself in many areas of contemporary design. During the 90’s Starck began to promote product longevity and to stipulate that morality, honesty and objectivity become part of the design process. Starck’s approach to design is subversive, intelligent and always interesting. His objects surprise and delight even as they transgress boundaries and subvert expectations. Miss K Table Lamp | Flos Boxinbox | Glas Italia Broom Stacking Chair | Emeco Designer Achille Castiglioni Achille Castiglioni Milan, Italy An internationally acknowledged master of design, Italian architect and designer Achille Castiglioni was often inspired by everyday objects and used a minimal amount of materials while creating forms with maximum effect. During his fifty-two-year career, he designed and collaborated on almost 150 objects, several of which are featured in the design collections of many museums. Castiglioni’s method was to have “a constant and consistent way of designing, not a style,” which led him to help create new products and innovate the household object. His work has had a powerful impact on the history of the applied arts and has taught generations about good design, while providing an overview of the characteristics that make design one of the highest expressions of twentieth-century creativity. Arco Lamp | Flos Mezzadro Stool | Zanotta Allunaggio Stool | Zanotta Designer Alberto Meda Alberto Meda Lenno, Italy After graduating with a degree in mechanical engineering from Milan Polytechnic in 1969, Alberto Meda began his career as a technical director for Kartell. Six years later, Meda realized that design was much more fun than production and began consulting work as a free-lance designer for companies such as Alias, Alfa Romeo, Gaggia, Kartell, Centrokappa, Fontana Arte, Luceplan, Mandarina Duck, Philips, and Vitra. Meda sees modern technology as a “supermarket of creative possibilities” and exploits it in his designs with virtuosic versatility. Meda has earned numerous awards, including the Compasso d’Oro in 1989 and 1994. Several of his pieces are now part of the permanent collection at the MoMA in New York. Meda Slim Chairs | Vitra Metropoli Lamp | Luceplan Queen Titania Lamp | Luceplan Designer Amanda Levete Amanda Levete Bridgend, Wales A Sterling Prize winning British architect and founder and principle of awardwinning architectural firm AL A, Amanda Levete is known for architecture and industrial design that finds unexpected solutions in organic forms and revolutionary materials, pushing the boundaries of what good design can be by challenging pre-conceptions of space and how we move through our environment, with expressive visuals and bold materiality. Heralded for iconic works like an extension at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Museum of Art, Architecture, and Technology in Lisbon, Levete has also left an indelible mark on industrial design with tableware for Alessi and pieces like the Drift series and Chester sofa, giving inspiration to poetic sculptural forms through a luxurious exploration of geometries in space, fluid, animated, and dramatic. Drift Bench | Established & Sons Chester Sofa | Established & Sons MAAT Museum | Lisbon, Portugal Designer Arne Jacobsen Arne Jacobsen Copenhagen, Denmark Arne Jacobsen was one of the most renowned Danish architects and designers of the 20th century, uniting the functional objectivity of Modernism with organic natural forms, producing pieces that have become icons of modern design still enjoyed to this day, like his celebrated compact, light, and easily stackable Ant chair and Seven series. A countless number of his designs continue to impact the design world, like his signature Swan and Egg chairs, developed in tandem with his work on the Royal Hotel of Copenhagen in 1956, his most celebrated accomplishment. Jacobsen once reported that “it has been said for many years that when a thing is practical and functional, it is beautiful as well. That I don’t believe.” His designs, however, managed to be both of those things — sculpturally unique and designed, above all, to be used. Ant Chair | Fritz Hansen Swan Chair | Fritz Hansen Egg Chair | Fritz Hansen Designer Arne Quinze Arne Quinze Sint-Martens-Latem, Belgium Arne Quinze is the founder and art director of Quinze & Milan. His eventful youth exposed his creative mind to the elements of urban street life, replete with graffiti art and biker gangs. These experiences molded Arne into an individual who embraces beauty even more so when it challenges established dogmas of the design world. As a conceptual artist and designer, Quinze is known for work that is unconventional and controversial, invoking social interaction, rhythm, contrasts and contradictions, and the interplay of lines. Quinze & Milan recognize that we live among a universal mélange of people who seek to combine technologies and unexpected materials and imagine objects inspired by the cross-pollination of cultures and lifestyles. The results are not intended as an end to a process, but the beginning of a discussion and an expression of a spirit, supporting other architects and designers in the realization of ideas that move beyond furniture design, and promote products that prompt one to dream and shape a reality all their own. Airbench | Quinze & Milan The Rebirth | Paris, France Dune | Knokke, Belgium Designer Arturo Álvarez Arturo Álvarez A Coruña, Spain The Spanish artist and designer Arturo Álvarez founded his modern lighting company on the principles of authentic handcrafted design, inventive material applications, and environmental responsibility. By leveraging proprietary materials and harnessing energy-efficient LED technology, Álvarez has created an awardwinning collection of contemporary lighting—feted with design awards and a place in museum collections—distinctive for its originality, versatility, and nuanced expression. Leria Lamp | Arturo Álvarez Conversas Lamp | Arturo Álvarez EL RINCÓN DE JUAN CARLOS RESTAURANT | Tenerife, Spain Designer Claudio La Viola Claudio La Viola Milan, Italy A purist, yet passionate and enthusiastic, Claudio La Viola fervently transfers emotion into his work as a designer and architect of pieces and structures full of energy and life. His work inevitably echoes his own vibrant personality and curiosity, exhibiting relentless innovation in his use of materials, extensive research, and attention to detail. La Viola collaborates with companies such as Agape, Falper, Rapsel, Richard Ginori, Via Bizzuno, Zani&Zani, Henry Timi, and Brix, where he worked as artistic director for the past ten years, to create joyful pieces marked by his signature style. From fashion to furnishings, to design objects, to jewelry, surfaces, architecture and even perfume, La Viola’s contribution to contemporary design has been all encompassing, illustrating that design is not simply a product but a lifestyle that can enrich many lives. Porto | Agape Falper Designer Claudio Silvestrin Claudio Silvestrin Zurich, Switzerland There is a reflective calm to Claudio Silvestrin’s work. His minimalism is elegant and soulful, executed with clarity of mind, creative ingenuity, and a concern for details. It is therefore no wonder why successful personalities such as Giorgio Armani, Anish Kapoor, Calvin Klein, Poltrona Frau, Victoria Miro, and Kanye West have sought his services. An award-winning architect, Claudio Silvestrin studied under A. G. Fronzoni in Milan and at the Architectural Association in London. He established his firm, Claudio Silvestrin Architects, in 1989 with offices in London, and later, in 2006, with offices in Milan. But Silvestrin has not limited his creative energy to architecture alone; his kitchen, baths, tiles, and objects have entranced users with a Zen-like peace and beauty, making his work both prolific and versatile, and indeed granting him as one of the finest creatives of our time. Neuendorf Villa | Majorca, Spain Torino Outlet Village | Turin, Italy Kanye West Loft | New York, USA St. Louis, Missouri Designer Charles and Ray Eames Charles and Ray Eames With legendary works that transformed how we view and consume design in the 20th century, Charles and Ray Eames made innovative strides with experimental materials like molded laminated wood and plastics, making beautiful, clean designs mass-produced and accessible to a wide audience all over the world. Winners of the Royal Gold Medal in 1979, the Eames were named the most influential designer of the 20th century in 1985 by the IDSA. Not only was this creative couple trendsetters in international design, they were also cultural ambassadors, excelling in fields of architecture, photography, exhibition design, graphic design, and film, elevating the visionary concept of modern design as an agent of social change to a national agenda, modernizing the post-war America one innovative piece at a time. La Chaise | Vitra Eames House | Los Angeles, USA Eames Lounge Chair Wood | Herman Miller Designer Enzo Mari Enzo Mari Novara, Italy One of the most well-respected designers of our time, Enzo Mari is also an artist and an impassioned humanist. His unusual ability to combine idea and form makes him an exceptional presence on the international design scene. He has succeeded in creating a magnificent collection of designs; all different, rational, and sincere. This includes some true works of art and of great beauty. Awarded the Compasso d’Oro in 1967, 1979, 1987 and in 2001 for his table Tavolo Legato, Mari published the book “Progetto e passione” (Project and passion) in 2001 which analyses the design on a wider cultural horizon. Radical in his ideas and subtle in his designs, Mari has collaborated with with many reputable design companies, including Artemide, Castelli, Danese, Driade, Gabbianelli, Interflex, Lema, Magis, and Zanotta. Autoprogettazione Furniture Tonietta Side Chair | Zanotta Box Chair Brittany, France Designer Erwan and Ronan Bouroullec Erwan and Ronan Bouroullec Stars of European design, Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec combine romanticism and functionality in their work, unveiling designs that are infused with energy, wit, and poetry. Their distinctive style, along with their extraordinary ability to reinvent traditional types of furniture and products, appeals to a younger generation of roving design enthusiasts while at the same time earning the respect and admiration of long-standing design professionals. Much of the Bouroullecs’ work is characterized by clean, uncluttered lines and a certain flexibility in use. They possess both a rational approach to the functionality of furniture and a graphic sensibility for fine geometry in space. Their designs are part of the permanent museum collections MoMA New York, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, and the London Design Museum. Vegetal Chair | Vitra Slow Chair | Vitra Aim Pendant Light | Flos Designer Davide Groppi Davide Groppi Piacenza, Italy From the end of the Eighties, starting from a very small laboratory in the historic center of Piacenza, Davide Groppi has invented and produced lamps with the homonymous brand, exuding a poetry of light with works that engage simplicity, lightness, emotion, invention, and amazement. Davide Groppi's lamps are born from the need to give shape to a need or a meaning, inspired by art, the ready-made, magic, the desire to do things with your hands or simply the desire to play and joke with light, as light, for Groppi, is a wonderful opportunity to seduce and excite. Winner of numerous awards and accolades including Compasso d’Oro for the Nulla and Sampei lamps in 2014 and the Compasso d’Oro Honorable Mention for the Tetatet in 2016, Davide Groppi has developed projects and installations together with various design companies including De Padova, Boffi, Paola Lenti, and Christofle. Sampei | Davide Groppi Tetatet | Davide Groppi Nulla | Davide Groppi Designer Campana brothers Fernando and Humberto Campana Sao Paolo, Brazil The flair, color and sheer inventiveness of Brazilian design is embodied in the work of the Campana brothers. Curiously enough, neither brother had planned a career in design. Humberto studied law, while Fernando got a degree in architecture. Humberto’s inborn passion for sculpture and manual work, however, slowly mutated from a part-time hobby into a serious endeavor. Fernando, on the other hand, provided both ideas and knowledge of the design process. Their work is instilled with the spirit of contemporary Brazil that they describe as ‘zest for life’ and has attracted some of the most cutting-edge design firms in the world, such as Edra, Alessi, Cappellini, and Fontana Arte. From the groundbreaking Vermelha Chair to the popular Favela chair, their work has surprised and aroused audiences across the globe and appear in the collections of prestigious international museums like the MoMA New York, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Vitra Design Museum in Germany. Favela Chair | Edra Corallo | Edra Sushi Chair | Edra Designer Florence Knoll Florence Knoll Saginaw, Michigan With clean lines and clear geometries humanized with organic shapes, textures, and color, Florence Knoll revolutionized office design with modernist sensibilities, making use of open office designs with solutions centered around the needs of those who work within them. Born in Saginaw, Michigan, she joined her husband Hans in directing his furniture company to embrace modern, Scandinavian styles, and as an architect and furniture designer herself crafted pieces that explore a rational minimalism imbued with great materiality and subdued beauty. Throughout the 1950s, Knoll’s work was often displayed at the MoMA New York’s Good Design exhibits. Though she retired from the Knoll company in 1965, her work and legacy remains vibrant and resolute, a tribute to the balanced forms and clear perspective of a modernist lifestyle, pristine in style with a purity of vision. Florence knoll 3 seat sofa | Knoll Florence Knoll Hairpin Stacking Table | Knoll Florence Knoll Credenza | Knoll Designer George Nelson George Nelson Hartford, Connecticut Established alongside Charles and Ray Eames as one of the founders of American modernism, George Nelson was a powerful force behind the development of this century’s American design aesthetic. As a thinker, writer, organizer and designer, Nelson commandeered a string of influential positions and brought about a widespread reevaluation of how furniture design can improve people’s lives. After becoming Design Director of the Herman Miller Company in 1945, Nelson began collaborating with many notable designers of his time, including Charles and Ray Eames, Harry Bertoia, Richard Schultz, Donald Knorr, and Isamu Noguchi. Some of his most successful works, like the Ball Clock from 1950 and the Marshmallow Sofa from 1965, are still produced to this day, enjoyed and admired in homes and commercial spaces across the globe. Ball Clock | Vitra Marshmallow Sofa | Herman Miller Nelson Platform Bench | Herman Miller Designer Gunter Wermekes Gunter Wermekes Kierspe, Germany Günter Wermekes, trained as a goldsmith with Friedrich Becker, is widely recognized as one of the world’s leaders in industrial design. Bringing together an unlikely pair, Wermekes was the first to combine stainless steel, a very industrial material, with the timeless beauty of diamonds into a complete jewelry collection. “Every material speaks its own language. Stainless steel talks of today, of building, future plans, and the cold composure of our modern age. A diamond, on the other hand, conveys timeless quality, fire and passion,” says Wermekes. Günter Wermekes also designs products such as wristwatches and door handles for various renowned manufacturers. His work is found in many top public and private collections, and he has won numerous awards, including the Design Prize NRW, the Platinum Design of the Year 1994, the Award for High Quality Design for the Design Center NRW, and Der Ring. Diamond Cuff Links | Gunter Wermekes Cylindrical Earrings | Gunter Wermekes Designer Hannes Wettstein Hannes Wettstein Ascona, Switzerland Very often a designer will show promise with a first design but will usually follow with designs that are fashionable and trendy rather than solidly unique. This is not the case with Hannes Wettstein. His clarity and functionalism are his strongest points. He is truly a schooled designer who takes a rational approach with everything he does. For Wettstein, it was the sleek and beautiful chair, Juliette, now a Baleri classic, that demonstrated his talent. Clocks, watches, glasses, lamps, rugs, and hardware have tempted his creativity as well. Simple yet sophisticated, elegant and functional, Wettstein’s works sing to a harmony of lines and curves, fine craftsmanship and meticulous attention to detail, at once timeless and unique. Juliette Chair | Baleri Italia 367 Hola Chair | Cassina High-Wave Bed | Molteni & C Designer Harry Bertoia Harry Bertoia San Lorenzo, Italy An artist, sound-art sculptor, and modern furniture designer, Harry Bertoia first came to the United States from Italy at age 15 on what was intended to be a temporary visit to see his older brother in Detroit. Not feeling compelled to leave, he made the pivotal decision to stay in Michigan and study art and design at Cass Technical High School, and later at the Cranbrook Academy of Art where he encountered notable design leaders like Water Gropius, Edmund Bacon, and Charles and Ray Eames. After working with the Eames in California for a time, his desire to work more exclusively with metal led him to relocate to Pennsylvania where he developed the now-famous Bertoia Collection for Knoll. His pieces have since become icons of modern design, introducing industrial wire mesh for an appearance both strong and delicate, functional yet ethereal pieces of sculpture that are unusually beautiful in their relationship to air and the space that surrounds them. Diamond Chair | Knoll Bird Chair | Knoll Bertoia Counter Stool | Knoll Designer Ingo Maurer Ingo Maurer Munich, Germany Hailed as the poet of light, Ingo Maurer’s self-taught career in lighting design was triggered by a fascination with the light bulb as the perfect meeting of industry and poetry. In 1966, inspired by Pop Art and as an homage to Edison, he designed Bulb, a table lamp in the form of a bulb within a giant light bulb that quickly established itself as a classic. Continuing to celebrate the simple beauty of the bare light bulb, in 1992 Maurer created Lucellino, a bulb with angel’s wings made from goose feathers, now one of his most renowned pieces. Prolific and diverse, Ingo Maurer has produced more than 120 different lamps and lighting systems. His recent work features a still more varied palette of materials and techniques, including holography and LED technology. His works are infused with a playful intelligence and energy unique to him, and an attention to poetic compositions that sculpt light in unexpected ways. Bulb | Ingo Maurer Lucellino | Ingo Maurer Zettel'z | Ingo Maurer Designer Jader Almeida Jader Almeida Videria, Brazil With a clear approach to design, Jader Almeida fuses the spirit of modernist architecture with the poetry and vitality of Brazilian customs and craft. The young designer builds on his native culture, skillfully mixing elements from Nordic design and other international movements to create pieces that exude an honesty of materials and attention to detail and form. From these inspirations, Almeida has created a design language that is distinctly his own, fueling a collection of over 150 pieces designed since the launch of his collection Sollos in 2004. Almeida tends to categorize human behavior as his “Alphabet”. Every “letter” symbolizing the process of examining methodically how to use a chair, how to talk when sitting on that chair, how it feels when paired with a table. He explains that when introducing his new collection, the next one does not replace the previous one. Each new piece is placed as if it were a word that joins the others to form an increasingly rich poem of design. Teca Bar Cart | Sollos Clad Dining Chair | Sollos Met Sofa | Sollos Designer Konstantin Grcic Konstantin Grcic Munich, Germany In a world saturated with objects and messages, Konstantin Grcic is unique for his ability to chart new territories. Grcic creates pieces widely described as pared down, simple, and minimalist. What sets him apart from the minimalism in fashionable currency today is that he defines function in human terms, combining maximum formal strictness with considerable mental acuity and humor. Winner of the Compasso d’Oro with works featured in the permanent collections of museums across the globe, Grcic has developed furniture, products, and lighting for some of Europe’s leading design companies such as Agape, Authentics, ClassiCon, Driade, Flos, Littala, Krups, Lamy, Magis, Moormann, and Moroso, with a style he describes as current, feasible, and realistic. Chair One | Magis Chaos Chair | Classicon Mars Chair | Classicon Milan, Italy Designer Lella and Massimo Vignelli Lella and Massimo Vignelli Massimo and Lella Vignelli have produced memorable designs for decades, with the philosophy that in design, form and function are totally integrated: one does not follow the other. Their work in corporate identity, graphics, product design, and architecture has shaped the modern world around us. For the Vignelli’s, good design must be visually powerful, intellectually elegant, and above all timeless. The Vignelli’s are extremely versatile designers whose work is distinguished by clean, bold lines and a confident use of pure color. Working firmly within the Modernist tradition, focusing on simplicity through the use of basic geometric forms in all of their work, the Vignelli’s have won many major design awards and are exhibited in museums around the globe. Serenissimo Table | Acerbis Handkerchief Chair | Knoll Antwerp, Belgium Designer Maarten Van Severen Maarten Van Severen Before succumbing to cancer at the young age of 48, Van Severen was frequently commissioned as a decorator and furniture designer for private residence projects, teamed with Rem Koolhaas. His work, hand produced in his workshop in Ghent Belgium, reflected his quest for perfection in form, detail and fabrication and utilized a variety of different materials, from aluminium and ply to bakelite and polyester. His highly acclaimed works include the Vizo chaise lounge in which he was awarded the Henry Vandevelde award, his U-Line lighting, which earned him an IF-design award and the design of the entrance halls at both the Museum of Fine Arts and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Ghent. Van Severen’s designs, although minimal, are multi-dimensional in approach and appeal. Each piece he created combines in-depth research and well thought-out proportions, resulting in an as yet undefinable style that made him a master at his profession. .03 Chair | Vitra .04 Chair | Vitra Designer Oki Sato Oki Sato Toronto, Canada Expressing a poetry of form, with work that is deceptively simple yet complex in its innovative conception and production, Oki Sato transforms spaces and inspires lives across the globe with projects in the fields of architecture, interior design, furniture, products, events, and graphics. For Canadian-born and Japanesetrained Sato, the simplest ideas and the smallest designs create the most unusual experiences. With his firm Nendo, which in Japanese means free-form clay and signifies the flexibility with which the design team executes their projects, Sato aims to recognize the “!” moments hidden in the everyday that enrich life and make it more interesting. As one of Newsweek magazine’s “100 Most Respected Japanese People” and earning the title of Designer of the Year from both Wallpaper* and Elle Décor magazines, Sato has been recognized both at home and abroad for work that engages curiosities and melds cleanly and sometimes unexpectedly into our everyday lives, passionate yet modest. Softer Than Steel | Desalto Ribbon Stool | Cappellini Deep Sea Bookcase | Glas Italia Designer Omer Arbel Omer Arbel Vancouver, Canada Based in Vancouver and Berlin, Omer Arbel is focused on the intrinsic mechanical, physical, and chemical qualities of materials as fundamental departure points for design. His interdisciplinary practice spans multiple scales and cultural-economic contexts to include architecture, industrial design, materials research, sculpture, invention, and high craft manufacturing. With his company Bocci, Arbel has used light as the canvas on which experiments in materiality and creative possibilities are crafted, producing award-winning design icons exhibited in museums, commercial sites, and public spaces across the globe. Winner of several Red Dot and iF Awards, a Yellow Pencil Yearbook entry, the Ronald J. Thom Early Design Achievement Award, and three World Architecture Festival awards, Arbel creates an ethereal ambiance with his work, one that stirs the senses and open minds. Serie 14 | Bocci Serie 73 | Bocci Serie 28 | Bocci Designer Paolo Piva Paolo Piva Adria, Italy One of the most celebrated architects and designers of the late 20th century, Paolo Piva is known for designs that express a formal rigor and arresting geometries, modern in style yet contemporary in bold, daring aesthetics that are often in dialogue with architecture, minimal and elegant. After studying architecture and visual arts at the IUAV under notable designer Carlo Scarpa, Piva left his mark in Venice and Vienna with structures, furniture designs, casegoods, and kitchens that made judicious use of carefully calibrated proportions and harmonizing visuals, some of which, like the Alanda table with its inverted, metal pyramid structure, became icons of contemporary design. Collaborating with renowned companies like B&B Italia, Poliform, Thonet, Dada, Lumenform, Mobel Italia, and many more, Piva excelled in architectural projects and interior designs that elevated the spaces we inhabit with a graceful appeal and modern charm, at once serene and sophisticated. Aranda Table | B&B Italia Andy Sofa | B&B Italia Area Coffee Table | B&B Italia Designer Pierre de Meuron Pierre de Meuron Basel, Switzerland As one of the founders of Pritzker-Prize winning architect duo Herzog and de Meuron, Pierre de Meuron has, with his partner Jacques Herzog, redefined contemporary architecture with great imagination and innovation in ground-breaking works like the Tate Museum of Modern Art, Prada Tokyo, and the Beijing National Stadium for the Olympic Games. In addition to their numerous architectural works t