Massimo & Lella Vignelli

MASSIMO & LELLA VIGNELLI (Milan, 1931-2014) and DAVID LAW for Acerbis.
Coffee table "Serenissimo", 1980's.
Thick glass top.
Mica gray powder coated steel beams.
Metal columns finished in encaustic, stucco effect.
In very good condition: 9/10.
Measurements: 178 x 49,5 x 49,5 cm.

Coffee table designed by the couple Lella and Massimo Vignelli, together with David Law, in the eighties. The formal refinement and geometric reduction of volumes was a constant quest of Vignelli, which in this coffee table reaches high levels of aestheticism. Likewise, the formal rotundity and the use of unorthodox materials and techniques to give them a characteristic patina was characteristic of the most propositional postmodern furniture of the decade.

The solid, heavy base consists of four thick cylinders connected to each other by a structure of steel beams coated in mica gray powder. The metal columns are finished in terracotta-colored encaustic that creates a stucco effect. The top is a thick square tempered glass.

Massimo Vignelli was an important and famous Italian graphic and industrial designer. He 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.