Massimo & Lella Vignella, Incontro 5080 for Bernini

MASSIMO & LELLA VIGNELLI (Milan, 1931-2014) for Bernini.
"Incontro 5080," 1991.
Curved walnut slats. Upholstery in black leather.
With casters.
Measurements: 94 x 62 x 60 cm.

Pair of armchairs designed by the couple Lella and Massimo Vignelli in the nineties. The formal refinement and the geometric reduction of the volumes was a constant search of Vignelli, that in the model Incontro reached high quotas of aestheticism. The synthesis between classicism and modernity gives the piece a timeless and eternal patina, accentuated by the use of curved walnut slats and black leather.

Massimo Vignelli and his wife Lella were an important and famed Italian graphic and industrial design tandem. Massimo attended a school in Brera, before earning his degree in architecture at the University of Milan. During 1953 and 1957, he also attended the School of Architecture at the University of Venice. At the beginning of his professional career, his area of specialization would be graphic design for the creation of products and corporate identities. In the late 1950s, he obtained a scholarship to study in the United States, specifically at Towle Silversmiths, Massachusetts and the Chicago Institute of Design. He created his own firm, Vignelli Associates, together with his wife. He based his work on modernism and simplicity, which is manifested through his taste for the use of geometric design.