Biography

The Milanese industrial designer, architect and urban planner Ludovico Magistretti was born in 1920 into an influential family of architects. To escape possible deportation to Germany, he fled to Switzerland before completing his architecture studies, where he met the architect Ernesto Nathan Rogers of the Milan office BBPR, who had also fled Italy. This was to be the beginning of a long-lasting professional and friendly relationship.

After the end of the Second World War, he took over his father's architectural studio, where he worked with Paolo Chess, Franco Montella and Franco Albini, among others, during the 1950s. During this creative period, he was mainly active as an (interior)architect. In 1956 he founded the Association for Industrial Design and in the 1960s he shaped Milan's urban design with striking office buildings.

In the 1960s and 70s, he increasingly designed furniture and lightings and worked successfully for many years with international companies such as Artemide, Cassina, Kartell and O-Luce, with the latter also as chief designer. He created classics of mid-century interior design that are still very popular today: the ‚Triteti‘ ceiling lamp (1967), the ‚Mania‘ wall lamp (1963) and the ‚Coupé‘ arc lamp (1967). For the table lamps ‚Eclisse‘ (1967) and ‚Atollo‘ (1977) he won the Compasso d'Oro. Also for Artemide, the plastic chairs ‚Selene‘ were created in 1969, which, together with the ‚Panton Chair‘ (Verner Panton, 1959) and ‚Universale‘ (Joe Colombo, 1967), are among the first stacking chairs made entirely of robust plastic.

During his career, Vico Magistretti was also a professor at universities and colleges worldwide. However, the Milanese was particularly fond of British culture - and apparently the British people were fond of him: from 1980 he worked at London's Royal College of Art, in 1983 he became a member of the Academy, in 1986 he received the Gold Medal of the British Society of Industrial Artists & Designers and in 1992 he became a Royal Designer.

Objects by Vico Magistretti