Bonacina 1889 participates to the edition of Milan Design Week 2021 with ‘Grandi Maestri’

words Matteo Mammoli

For the first time the projects and studies that have given life to real icons are displayed. Four windows on Via della Spiga dedicated to the great Masters, each represented by an iconic design realized with Bonacina 1889

Lampoon review: Bonacina 1889 – Grandi Maestri

The list of names that have worked with Bonacina 1889 includes the great Masters of Italian Design, including Giovanni Travasa, Franco Albini, Joe Colombo, Gio Ponti. They experimented with shapes and volumes: we can talk about Bonacina Style, one that goes beyond the very production of the house to which it belongs, that defines a chapter of the Italian style. It is a matter of taste, of culture – but also of daring, sometimes irreverence in a modernity that we recall becomes necessary if, as we are doing here, we want to use the word style.

Bulrush, rattan, Malacca; «It’s the material that creates this style. The big names worked with us because we could make shapes that would have been impossible or too expensive with other materials. The distinctive feature is the balance, between manufacturing, craftsmanship and art – by balancing these weights, the Grandi Maestri preceded the avant-garde that defined them», says Elia Bonacina, member of the fourth generation, holding the leadership of the company in his hands.

Four windows on Via della Spiga are dedicated to the four Grandi Maestri, each represented by an iconic design created with Bonacina 1889. This fall, the installation on Via della Spiga introduces the publication of four monographs, including texts and images.

Bonacina 1889 participates in the edition of Milan Design Weeek 2021 underlining the bond that unites the brand to the products it has been creating for over 130 years.

The great Masters that have collaborated with Bonacina 1889

Giovanni Travasa – Eureka, Eva, Foglia and Palla are the names of the armchairs designed for Bonacina 1889. The armchairs are exhibited in the permanent collection of the Triennale Design Museum. Travasa has been collaborating with Bonacina 1889 since 1954 – his creations have been in the company’s catalog without any interruption since then. Wooden materials intertwine to form curves, in an experimentation with organic forms. At that time, minimalism was not a concept: yet Travasa, with these objects, anticipated and went beyond it.

Franco Albini – Sostanza della forma is a constant in the career of Albini as a designer. In the armchairs Margherita and Gala – made in 1951 for Bonacina 1889 – in malacca and Indian cane, the three-dimensional and sculptural supporting structures are designed to embrace the body, thanks to the natural elasticity and flexibility of the raw material and to the skillful hands with which they were made. This is the work where you can recognize the traits of Albini artisan.

Margherita is the first armchair of Italian design without the classic four legs, but was born from the concept of the flower — more precisely, the daisy. The simplicity of this wild flower has not prevented artists and poets from being inspired. Franco Albini and Vittorio Bonacina were no exception.

Bonacina and Gio Ponti

Gio Ponti – Bonacina can enhance the work of a master such as Gio Ponti. This is the goal of Continuum, an armchair made of hand-curved rush in 1963, which bears the full imprint of Ponti’s style in the early 1960s. Ponti, who in 1960 created the Hotel Parco dei Principi in Sorrento, here almost separates the design from its official nature. He lightens the structure to the maximum, transforming it into a vital outline, freeing this bergère from any suspicion of gravity and décor. Continuum is a sinopia, a graphism, a satisfying and Mediterranean pulsation. After all, it was Ponti himself who insisted on the need to be modern at all costs and to spread new cultural stimuli.

Joe Colombo – When modern industrial production did not yet exist in Italy, Joe Colombo saw the integration of design into the industry. In 1965 he designed Universale, the first chair that was moulded in full by injection using a single plastic material. In the same year, Nastro appeared in international magazines – cane curved so as to embrace the seat and back in a single structure.