Italian architect and designer Andrea Branzi, who was one of many founders of influential studio Archizoom Associati and the Domus Academy, has died aged 84.
Over a six-decade profession, Branzi created quite a few avant-garde designs alongside along with his work as an educator, first on the Domus Academy after which on the College of Inside Design on the Polytechnic College of Milan.
In 2022 he gained the Italian Structure Prize’s lifetime achievement award, having additionally gained a number of awards all through his profession together with three Compasso d’Oro in 1979, 1987 and 1995.
His loss of life was marked by Italian architect and president of the Triennale Milano Stefano Boeri, who known as the architect “a visionary artist”.
“Andrea Branzi has left us,” wrote Boeri on Instagram. “He was a large of radical pondering on human areas, a complicated historian of Italian design, a visionary artist able to paradoxically inhabiting different universes and parallel worlds.”
“He leaves us a strong and generative legacy of works and texts. He left us pondering and dreaming. Hello Andrea, preserve dreaming about us,” he continued.
Born in 1938, Branzi graduated from the Florence College of Structure in 1966. The identical 12 months he shaped the avant-garde structure studio Archizoom Associati with Gilberto Corretti, Paolo Deganello and Massimo Morozzi.
A lead proponent of the Radical Design motion, the studio collaborated with Superstudio to create the influential Superarchitettura exhibition to showcase its beliefs.
One of many studio’s most important designs was a proposal for an experimental metropolis that was stripped again to solely important parts and could possibly be prolonged indefinitely, known as the No-Cease Metropolis. One of many plans for town is held within the assortment of Museum of Trendy Artwork in New York.
Together with theoretical structure, the studio created a sequence of seating within the Sixties that aimed to problem how furnishings is used. These included the Superonda couch in 1966 together with the Safari couch and Mies chair in 1968, nonetheless produced as we speak by Poltronova.
Archizoom Associati disbanded in 1974 and Branzi went on to grow to be a member of Studio Alchimia and collaborate with the Memphis Group within the Eighties.
Within the mid Eighties, he had a marked change in fashion transferring away from his earlier post-modern influenced designs. A key work that demonstrated this shift was the Animali Domestici sequence created along with his spouse Nicoletta Morozzi.
The sequence of chairs have been shaped from industrial-looking gray bases topped with armrests and seat backs constructed from untreated logs and branches.
In his intensive design profession, Branzi created items for quite a few manufacturers together with a toothpick dispenser and bottle opener for Alessi.
Lately he created designs for the Friedman Benda and Carpenters Workshop galleries. Different collaborators embrace Arezzo, Nilufar, and Nero Design Gallery.
Branzi was additionally a major educator who co-founded the Domus Academy post-graduate college of design in 1982. He would act as cultural director on the establishment for a decade. He went on to be chairman of the College of Inside Design on the Polytechnic College of Milan till 2009.
Earlier this 12 months Italian architect and designer Rodolfo Dordoni, who was artwork director for Italian design manufacturers together with Artemide, Cappellini and Minotti, handed away on the age of 69.
The pictures are courtesy of Triennial Milano.