Cassina

Cassina is one of the companies that gave birth to Italian industrial design. Founded in Brianza, the land of furniture makers, it managed to move from craft workshop to mass production without losing the quality of its woodwork, and today it is famous worldwide for its re-editions of the great masters of modern architecture.

From workshop to industry

The firm “Amedeo Cassina” was founded in 1927 in Meda by the brothers Cesare and Umberto Cassina, and at first it worked wood to make small tables and other furniture. Growth came after the war, thanks to large orders for the interiors of cruise ships, hotels and restaurants, which pushed the company towards mass production. In those years the collaboration with Gio Ponti began: he designed the 646 chair and above all the 699 Superleggera, an extremely light ash and rush chair, designed in 1955 and made from 1957.

The Masters

In 1964 Cassina bought the rights to produce four models designed in 1928 by Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand, including the LC4 chaise longue and the LC2 and LC3 armchairs. It was the start of the Cassina I Maestri collection, which brings back into production, with the permission of heirs and foundations, the furniture of the fathers of the Modern Movement. In the following years came pieces by Gerrit Rietveld of De Stijl, Charles Rennie Mackintosh of the Glasgow School, Frank Lloyd Wright, Erik Gunnar Asplund and, more recently, Franco Albini, the first Italian master in the collection.

Research and new materials

Cassina does not only look to the past. In 1966 Cesare Cassina founded C&B with Piero Ambrogio Busnelli, later to become B&B Italia, to experiment with injection-moulded polyurethane foam. In 1968 it launched the Ciprea armchair by Afra and Tobia Scarpa, a single block of polyurethane. Then came Vico Magistretti's Maralunga sofa (1973) and Mario Bellini's Cab chair (1977), whose leather cover zips over the steel frame like a garment, now at MoMA. In 1972 the experimental workshop Bracciodiferro was set up with Gaetano Pesce and Alessandro Mendini; in 1987 Pesce designed the Feltri armchair, in felt stiffened with resin.

Cassina today

In 1991 the company received a lifetime Compasso d'Oro. After some years in French hands, in 2005 it returned to Italian ownership as part of the Poltrona Frau group, which since 2014 has belonged to the American company Haworth. Contemporary designers working for Cassina include Piero Lissoni, Philippe Starck and Patricia Urquiola. In 2023 Cassina also acquired Zanotta.

Sources

• Wikipedia – Cassina (it)
• Wikipedia – Cassina (en)