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Lot Essay
A Unique Table by Pierluigi Giordani
In architecture and interior design, the 1950s are dominated by the vitality and imagination of a new generation of designers all struggling to overcome the style of the Thirties and the severe rationalism. The magazines publish masterpieces by Carlo Mollino and his pupils from Turin, Ico and Luisa Parisi, exhibit in the Milan Triennale of that decade. Organicism and love for nature dominate the scene; it is a short period but very defined stylistically. The work of Alvar Aalto and the small armchairs designed by Charles and Ray Eames in 1945 reflect well the anti-rhetorical sense of that utopian moment that in Italy is particularly alive, authentic and animated by great performers. This period precedes the great boom of Italian design of the Sixties, which will abandon all craftsmanship and will be defined by the links to industrial production.
Pierluigi Giordani was an engineer, urban planner and theorist, active in various fields. A pupil of Giovanni Michelucci with whom he collaborated for the magazine "La nuova città", he was a friend of Bruno Zevi, he wrote in his magazine "L'Architettura", and he was close to Alberto Sartoris and Carlo Scarpa. For a few years in the first half of the Fifties he devoted himself to the creation of furniture, as shown by the photos of a table and an armchair and other furniture published in the magazine "L'Architettura" in the July-August 1955 issue. Giordani bestowed the structure of his furniture an almost animal touch: the supports similar to fins, accentuated tips, balances based on irregularity and asymmetry exasperating the provocative design of the early fifties.
The passion and admiration for the French artist Jean Arp and his abstract anatomical forms provide inspiration for his work in those early years, created in collaboration with an excellent craftsman and cabinet maker Renzo Reggi. The present lot, a large centre table, is the result of an amazing and accurate project for a private commission in Giordani’s hometown Bologna. The exceptional piece consists of elements that come to life together: the extraordinary sculptural design of the legs; the top with a wide edge polished inlaid alternating with precious tulipwood crossbanding with a chatoyancy effect and other very rare woods.
Maria Paola Maino
In architecture and interior design, the 1950s are dominated by the vitality and imagination of a new generation of designers all struggling to overcome the style of the Thirties and the severe rationalism. The magazines publish masterpieces by Carlo Mollino and his pupils from Turin, Ico and Luisa Parisi, exhibit in the Milan Triennale of that decade. Organicism and love for nature dominate the scene; it is a short period but very defined stylistically. The work of Alvar Aalto and the small armchairs designed by Charles and Ray Eames in 1945 reflect well the anti-rhetorical sense of that utopian moment that in Italy is particularly alive, authentic and animated by great performers. This period precedes the great boom of Italian design of the Sixties, which will abandon all craftsmanship and will be defined by the links to industrial production.
Pierluigi Giordani was an engineer, urban planner and theorist, active in various fields. A pupil of Giovanni Michelucci with whom he collaborated for the magazine "La nuova città", he was a friend of Bruno Zevi, he wrote in his magazine "L'Architettura", and he was close to Alberto Sartoris and Carlo Scarpa. For a few years in the first half of the Fifties he devoted himself to the creation of furniture, as shown by the photos of a table and an armchair and other furniture published in the magazine "L'Architettura" in the July-August 1955 issue. Giordani bestowed the structure of his furniture an almost animal touch: the supports similar to fins, accentuated tips, balances based on irregularity and asymmetry exasperating the provocative design of the early fifties.
The passion and admiration for the French artist Jean Arp and his abstract anatomical forms provide inspiration for his work in those early years, created in collaboration with an excellent craftsman and cabinet maker Renzo Reggi. The present lot, a large centre table, is the result of an amazing and accurate project for a private commission in Giordani’s hometown Bologna. The exceptional piece consists of elements that come to life together: the extraordinary sculptural design of the legs; the top with a wide edge polished inlaid alternating with precious tulipwood crossbanding with a chatoyancy effect and other very rare woods.
Maria Paola Maino