Mid-Century Italian Brown Porcelain Stoneware Ashtray by Mangiarotti Danese, 1970s

Highly esteemed for his researched and controlled approach to materials, Italian architect, sculptor, and designer Angelo Mangiarotti was born in Milan in 1921. Having graduated from the Politecnico di Milano with an architecture degree in 1948, he moved to the United States in 1953. There, he held a visiting professorship at Chicago’s Illinois Institute of Technology and befriended famous architects Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959), Walter Gropius (1883-1969), Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969), and Konrad Wachsmann (1901-1980)—all of whom influenced his work immensely.

Mangiarotti returned to Milan in 1955 and opened an architectural firm with Italian architect Bruno Morasutti (1920-2008). The pair designed industrial, residential, and cultural institutions, such as the Via Cantore Skyscraper (1955) in Genova and the Mater Misericordiae Church (1957) in Milan. The partnership dissolved in 1960.

From 1963 to 1990, Mangiarotti held lecturing positions at a number of distinguished design and architecture schools in Italy and abroad. In 1989, he founded Mangiarotti & Associates, based in Tokyo. He later served as the Creative Director at Colle Cristalleria from 1989 to 1992.

Beyond his many architectural feats, Mangiarotti’s portfolio includes a wide array of creative projects—ranging from sculptures, like Cono-cielo (1987), to products, like his Fratelli Brambilla Ashtrays (1968)—that demonstrate his masterfully modern handling of traditional materials like glass and marble. His designs were produced by the most progressive brands of his day, including Artemide, Bernini, Cappellini, Knoll, and, most famously Skipper, which produced the Incas Table (1978), Estral Shelving System (1981), Chicago Chair (1983), and Central Table (1985), among others. He’s also famous for his collection of Murano glass-link Giogali Lighting (ca. 1967) produced by Vistosi.

Over his the course of his career, Mangiarotti won numerous awards in both design and architecture, such as the Domus Formica Award (1956), the Prix Européen de la Construction Métallique (1979), a Career Compasso d’Oro (1994), and the Marble Architectural Award (1994, 2007). His work has been featured in many exhibitions worldwide, including the Centre Pompidou in Paris, Triennale Design Museum in Milan, and Gallery MA in Tokyo.

In 2012, Mangiarotti passed away in Milan at the age of 91. His daughter Anna Mangiarotti (b. 1950) is a professor in architecture technology at the Politecnico and works closely with Vistosi to manufacture her father’s designs as well as her own. Since 2010, Agape Casa has owned the license to produce a number of Mangiarotti’s most beloved designs.

* Images courtesy of Studio Mangiarotti, Agape Casa, Artemide, and Vistosi

Italian manufacturer Danese has been a major player in Italian design since the late 1950s, and was instrumental in the promotion of the Italian design identity throughout the 1960s and ‘70s. Danese’s most famous products were the fruit of collaborations with design icons Bruno Munari and Enzo Mari.  

In 1955, Italian entrepreneur Bruno Danese established DEM (Danese e Meneguzzo) with business partner Franco Meneguzzo. The company did not last, and in 1957 Bruno Danese co-founded his eponymous company with Jacqueline Vodoz, although he continued to collaborate with Meneguzzo until 1961. Aiming to marry art with design, the Danese showroom on the Piazza San Fedele in Milan was an art gallery and exhibition space as much as it was a store.

Danese met two important designers that would shape the future of his company, namely Bruno Munari (1907-1998) in 1958 and subsequently Enzo Mari (b. 1932). Designing a range of household objects and tableware specifically created for everyday use, Munari and Mari were key to the brand’s successful transition from hand-crafted goods to mass produced items made using streamlined production methods. The innovative products thought up by the enterprising trio were produced by the company until 1962. Made from a wide range of materials including aluminum, brass, cardboard, ceramics, plastic, steel, and wood, the products they created were both avant-garde and everyday—and soon became icons of modernist design.

Notable Danese products include, 16 Animals (Mari, 1957), a wooden puzzle featuring animal shapes that combine to form a rectangle; Cubo Ashtray (Munari, 1957); the multi-purpose Putrella Tray (Mari, 1958); Formosa Calendar (Mari, 1963); and the Falkland Pendant Light (Munari, 1964), which has become a classic of 20th-century design and can be found in museum collections worldwide. Achille Castiglioni, Arik Levy, Ross Lovegrove, Angelo Mangiarotti, Alberto Meda, and Atelier Oi are a number of important designers to have worked with Danese since its was established.

In 1991, Danese was bought out by Cassina-Alias which coincided with a period of declining sales and stagnant production.  In 1999, Italian architect-designer Carlotta de Bevilacqua (b. 1957) became the sole administrator and turned Danese’s fortune around. The brand reasserted its importance in the Italian design industry—relauching with a new emphasis on environmentally friendly design.