Osvaldo Borsani: A Life Dedicated to Architecture and Design

Among the most notable authors presented at Cambi Casa d’Aste’s Design200 auction, scheduled for March 21 at the maison’s Milan headquarters, is Osvaldo Borsani, designer and founder of the industrial engineering and technological innovation company Tecno. Osvaldo Borsani was among the leading Italian architects, designers and entrepreneurs active from the 1930s to the 1980s, leaving an indelible mark on the history and world of design. His life has been fully dedicated to creativity and ingenuity, a passion inherited from his father Gaetano, a furniture maker who headed the Atelier Borsani, thereafter renamed ABV Arredamenti Borsani Varedo.

In 1931 Borsani graduated from the Milan Academy of Fine Arts and decided to enroll at the Milan Polytechnic, where he graduated in Architecture in ’37. In 1933 he won a silver medal for his Casa minima, a project presented at the Fifth Edition of Milan Triennale. From the 1940s the designer began to create various works on different scales: from buildings to industrial and furniture products. With his brother Fulgenzio, in the early 1950s, Osvaldo founded the company Tecno, established to transform the artisan activity of his father’s Atelier into an industrial reality, while continuing to design and produce with ABV Arredamenti Borsani Varedo. It is the evolution of the nation itself, the move from the scale of the workshop to that of industry, that has brought so many Italian brands to fame.

Throughout his life, the designer forged important collaborative relationships and friendships with Italian personalities such as Andrea Cascella, Roberto Crippa, Agenore Fabbri, Fausto Melotti, Arnaldo and Giò Pomodoro, Aligi Sassu, and especially Lucio Fontana. As a designer, he created the iconic P40 armchair, the distinctive D70 sofa and innovative office kits. Osvaldo Borsani’s work has been the subject of numerous exhibitions and retrospectives, shown at the Milan Triennale, MoMa in New York and San Francisco, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Neue Sammlung in Munich, and the Musée des arts décoratifs in Montréal.

Among the highly valuable works signed by the designer featured in the Design200 auction, lot 113, which includes two special coat racks with a telescopic swivel and height-adjustable design, fully represents Osvaldo Borsani’s DNA and the richness of his design language. Two distinctive objects with timeless elegance, capable of transmitting their soul at first glance. Made of aluminum and steel with leather upholstery and wood elements of different essences, these icons reveal Borsani’s refinement and his ability to combine research into materials and technologies with a vivid interest in creativity and artistic avant-garde.

From Thursday, March 16 to Saturday, March 18, and Monday, March 20, the public will be able to visit the display of lots in the spaces of the maison’s Milan headquarters.

Discover all the lots in the online catalog: https://www.cambiaste.com/it/asta-0833/design200.asp?action=reset