On Thursday, April 12th, PIASA will present its Italian Selected Design sale in which, amongst great names of 20th century Italian furniture design, several rare pieces by Milanese studio B.B.P.R. will be auctioned.
The B.B.P.R. studio was formed in 1932 by Gianluigi Banfi (1910–1945), Lodovico Barbiano di Belgiojoso (1909–2004), Enrico Peressutti (1908–1976), and Ernesto Nathan Rogers (1909–1969), newly graduated from the Polytechnic school of Milan. Beginning with their first architectural creations, they adopt and develop, together with the architects of Gruppo 7, the burgeoning Italian rationalist style.
B.B.P.R
Paire de fauteuils
Their work is interrupted by their joining the resistance during the Second World War, which will lead to Gianluigi Banfi’s death in concentration camps and to Ernest Rogers’ exile. However, the end of the war will bring about the confirmation of their prominent role in the modernist movement: at Milan’s 9th Triennial, in 1951, they brilliantly showcase Italian industrial design. The studio adopts an avant-garde division of labor method, participates in the discussion and polemic around the International Style, and in the theorization of modernism.
Their growing reputation allows them to collaborate with architects, intellectuals and artists from across the world, notably Max Bill, Lucio Fontana, Saul Steinberg, or Alexander Calder.
Studio B.B.P.R.’s furniture is inseparable from its architectural creation; the functionalism of its clean lines, the use of industrial materials, and the work on volume blends with the massive concrete structures of the buildings. The radicalism of their creation will even bring Peter Smithson to describe Ernesto Rogers’ work as “dangerous and immoral” at the International Congress for Modern Architecture in 1959.
Lot 142 - B.B.P.R
Modèle 2045, Plafonier
Vendu 98 352 €
Their furniture creation, developed mainly in the 1950s, relies on a simple and refined aesthetic, balancing industrial materials with, for example, leather and velvet, and a graceful use of wood.
B.B.P.R
Lit de repos
The Giulietta armchair is a beautiful example of the elegance of this joint effort, and will grace the cover of Domus magazine in November 1960.
B.B.P.R
Modèle Giulietta, Fauteuil
Their collaboration’s frame of mind will remain the same throughout the decades, despite the passing of Gianluigi Banfi: “any design made by four people is always better than it would have been if done alone by each person... we will never reveal the individual paternity of an idea. Every idea is always our idea.”
