Gae Aulenti (1927-2012) was an Italian architect and a prolific designer of furniture, lighting and theatre sets. Aulenti was one of the few women working in architecture and design in postwar Italy and her talents found a vast range of outlets, from showrooms for Fiat and Olivetti to sets for La Scala, the opera house in Milan, to private villas for the rich. But it is for her work in museums and exhibition design that she was best known - and for her largest project, which also proved to be her most divisive.
She was chosen in 1981 to convert the Beaux Arts-style Gare d'Orsay railway station in Paris into a new home for impressionist art. Her proposal transformed the cavernous central hall, a magnificent barrel-vaulted train shed lit by arching roof lights, into an open exhibition space, with the insertion of modern industrial materials. Original cast-iron beams and plaster rosettes were contrasted with wire mesh partitions and new rough stone walls, on which the collection, of mainly French art from 1848 to 1915, was daringly hung.
Throughout the 60s and 70s, Aulenti produced furniture for Milan's major design houses.
The houses she went on to design in the 70s and 80s shared a similarly postmodern sensibility. With echoes of buttresses and primal pitched-roof forms, they reveal a taste for references to pre-classical architecture and a sense of elementary construction. In many ways they are a strong reflection of her character, described by the Italian writer Alberto Arbasino as "a cross between bucolic charm and the solid mentality of an engineer".
Aulenti enjoyed what she called the "double ambiguity" of working in existing contexts, juxtaposing elements of the past with the present. As well as the Musée d'Orsay and the Palazzo Grassi, she designed the permanent collection galleries of the Pompidou Centre in Paris, the Palacio Nacional in Barcelona and, most recently, the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco.
More than 90 years ago, in 1921, Paolo Venini, a Milanese lawyer, and Giacomo Cappellin, a Venetian antique dealer, founded Cappellin Venini & C.
During the first years Martinuzzi followed his predecessor’s guidelines, and this is why their works are hard to tell apart. The first signs of a change could be seen during the exhibition in Monza in 1927 where Venini exhibited pieces with different decorative elements such as coloured glass filaments. The following year Martinuzzi brought innovation into the glass world with the "pulegoso" glass. It is characterised by thousands of air bubbles which make it look opaque.
He was able to create majestic works thanks to his passion and talent for sculpture. Among these we find the great fountain for the Quadriennale in Rome and Josephine Baker’s famous statue.
Paolo Venini started to play an important role, as he had learnt a lot about glass. Still, he preferred to somebody else to be Artistic Director, such as Tommaso Buzzi, Napoleone Martinuzzi's successor. Meanwhile, some of the most important artists started to work with Venini. Among them were Carlo Scarpa and Gio Ponti.
In 1940 Carlo Scarpa and Paolo Venini presented some new techniques, such as Battuti, Tessuti, Granulari and Murrine. At the Biennale in Venice and the Triennale in Milan.
Immediately after World War II the situation was very complicated and all the companies in Murano didn’t know whether to produce new designs or concentrate the production on classical shapes.
Venini’s answer to the market came in 1948 during the Venice Biennale, where the firm launched some new works by a young artist from Padua: Fulvio Bianconi.
In 1972 a fire broke out in the factory and many samples and prototypes, including original drawings, were destroyed. Only a few of them were saved.
In the following years Laura, Ludovico’s daughter, managed the company. During the 80’s Venini started to work with very famous artists and designers such as Owe Thorssen, Brigitta Karlsson and Tina Aufiero. In the mid 80’s Gardini and Ferruzzi bought out Venini, and they started to work with Alessandro Mendini, one of the most important architects worldwide. In the 90’s Ettore Sottssass began to collaborate with Venini as well.
At the end of 2001 the group Italian Luxury Industries, ran by the Italian entrepreneurs Gabriella and Giancarlo Chimento and Giuliano and Guglielmo Tabacchi, bought out Venini, focusing on luxury and design in order to maintain the aim of Paolo Venini, started in 1921.
The company still attends the most important design events all around the world launching new collections and limited editions designed by Giorgio Vigna, Alessandro Mendini, Sandro Chia and Mimmo Rotella. In the following years the number of important collaborations increases including the one with Fernando and Humberto Campana, who, in 2005, designed a big installation of glass bells for Moss Gallery in New York. During the most recent years the company maintained its most important feature: cooperate with worldwide renowned designers, architects and artists such as Tadao Ando, Fabio Novembre, Luca Nichetto, Gaetano Pesce, Matteo Thun, Atelier OI, Studio Job, Emmanuel Babled, Harri Koskinen, Diego Chilò, Ronan and Erwan Bourroulec and Leonardo Ranucci.
Vase
Handmade blown glass realized with multi coloured glass layers
SPECIFICATIONS
Diameter 40cm, height 40cm
Made in Italy
Shipping
Shipping cost on request. Click on "Get a Quotation" under the price.
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