A classic from the seventies, characterised by its structure in curved steel, lacquered in dark brown, which mary well with the brick red fabric. The back and seat are comfortable, made from a single piece of plywood. Designed while Aulenti created the Musée d’ Orsay in Paris.
Born in 1927 in Palazzolo dello Stella (Udine), Gae Aulenti trained between Florence and Turin. After the war, she moved to Milan to study architecture at the Milan Polytechnic, graduating in 1953. In the early years of her career (1955-1965), she worked on the staff of "Casabella-Continuità" under the editorship of Ernesto Nathan Rogers. with some of her fellow editors - including Aldo Rossi and Vittorio Gregotti - she took part in the Neo-Liberty movement in response to the rationalist tendencies of the previous decades and the organic approach pursued by another group of architects gravitating around Bruno Zevi. In this early period, Aulenti designed the Sgargul rocking chair (1962) for Poltronova, inspired by the Thonet No. 1 tilting armchair, produced precisely 100 years earlier; and the Locus Solus garden chairs (1964), now reissued by Exteta.
Her interest in industrial design led her to collaborate with the most renowned companies, designing furnishings that soon became iconic, using the most diverse materials. They ranged from the April folding chair for Zanotta (1964) to the Jumbo marble table for Knoll (1965), the 4794 chair in polyurethane for Kartell (1974), and the Table with wheels for Fontana Arte (1980), inspired by an industrial trolley used by the company and now in the MoMA design collection. At the time, Aulenti devoted herself to interior design and renovations; this period was marked by her collaboration with Olivetti, for whom she renovated the Paris showroom in 1966-1967, handling both the architecture and design aspects (with the famous Pipistrello lamp), and designed the Buenos Aires showroom (1968).
In 1972, she was among the architects and designers invited to contribute to the exhibition "Italy: the new Domestic Landscape" curated by Emilio Ambasz at MoMa in New York; it was a show that launched the international careers of many Italian professionals. During the '70s, she collaborated with Luca Ronconi and other intellectuals on the ambitious Laboratorio di Progettazione Teatrale in Prato, for which she created the most astonishing sets. In the 1980s, she designed high-profile museum installations like the Musée d'Orsay (1980-1986), the Musée National d'Art Moderne in the Centre Pompidou (1982-1985) in Paris and the renovation of Palazzo Grassi in Venice (1985-1986). She was responsible for the redesign of Piazzale Cadorna in Milan (2000) and the renovation of the Palavela in Turin for the 2006 Winter Olympics. Gae Aulenti died in Milan on October 31, 2012, at the age of 84.
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