Gae Aulenti
(1927–2012)
was born near Venice and graduated as an Architect from the Milan Polytechnic in 1954. It was while working as a graphic designer with Casabella Magazine when she joined her colleagues in forming the Neo Liberty movement in Italy. Rejecting the severe architecture of masters like Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe, Rationalism and the monotony of the Bauhaus, the group returned to local building traditions and individual expression. While historic town centres around Italy were about to be wrecked as part of the Modernist agenda, the Neo Liberty movement argued to reverse this suppression of truth and history.
Interiors were also touched by the Neo Liberty movement such as the 1972 apartment below belonging to Gae Aulenti. Furniture was designed to be coherent with the materials. For example this 1965 Gae Aulenti Jumbo table is carved in marble with classical pillars.
Throughout the 1960`s and 1970`s, Aulenti produced furniture for Milan`s major design houses, including Knoll, Zanotta and Kartell, as well as lighting for Artemide, Stilnovo and Martinelli Luce. She designed showrooms for Fiat and Olivetti as well as sets for the Opera House in Milan.
In the 1980’s Aulenti enjoyed working in museum contexts, juxtaposing elements of the past with the present. As well as the Parisian Musée d`Orsay and the Italian Palazzo Grassi, she designed part of the Pompidou Centre in Paris, the Palacio Nacional in Barcelona and the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco in USA.
At Roomscape we have a range of vintage pieces by designers of the Italian Neo Liberty movement including this
Gae Aulenti table.
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