Mario Bellini

Mario Bellini was born in Milan in 1935 and graduated in architecture from the Politecnico di Milano in 1959. He lives and works in Milan.

His work ranges from urban planning and architecture to the design of furniture and industrial products. His work as a designer is famous: it began in 1963 with Olivetti and Cassina and continued with many Italian and international companies, including Artemide, B&B Italia, Brionvega, Yamaha, Renault, Rosenthal and Vitra. He has won the Compasso d'Oro several times and many other international awards; many of his works are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, which devoted a solo exhibition to him in 1987.

Breakfast Bed - bed - for B&B Italia

Since the 1980s he has worked mainly in architecture, in Europe, Japan and the United States. His best-known works in Italy include the Portello district of the Milan Fair and the Villa Erba congress centre in Cernobbio.

He won the international competitions for the new National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, completed in 2003, and for the south-west district of the Essen Fair, completed in 2001. In the same year he won the competition for a new cultural centre in Turin, with the central public library and a theatre.

He has also designed office buildings in Frankfurt and the Italian headquarters of Natuzzi. In 2012 he completed, with Rudy Ricciotti, the new Department of Islamic Arts at the Louvre in Paris.

Cartesius - dining table

From 1986 to 1991 he was editor of Domus, the prestigious international magazine of architecture, design and art.

A passionate art lover and collector, he designed many exhibitions, including "The Treasury of San Marco" at the Grand Palais in Paris and other museums around the world (1984-1987), "Italian Art in the 20th Century" at the Royal Academy of Arts in London (1989), "The Renaissance from Brunelleschi to Michelangelo" at Palazzo Grassi in Venice, then in Paris and Berlin (1994-1995), and "The Triumphs of the Baroque. Architecture in Europe 1600-1750" at the Palazzina di Caccia di Stupinigi, near Turin (1999).

La Rotonda (1977) - table - Cassina

In October 2000 the Galleria Civica di Arte Contemporanea in Trento devoted the exhibition "Mario Bellini: a journey through architecture, furniture and machines" to him, which he designed himself.