Franco Albini Carts and Bar Carts
Italian, 1905-1977
While working under the polymath Gio Ponti — arguably the most important figure in 20th-century Italian modernism — furniture designer Franco Albini nurtured a love for modern forms combined with traditional craft techniques.
Albini is widely known for working with organic materials such as rattan and cane for his chairs and other seating, but he also played a pivotal role in the Italian rationalist movement of the early 20th century, which saw architects and furniture makers applying a strict emphasis on geometry in their work. Rationalists drew on Ancient Roman architecture but rejected ornament, much in the way that Le Corbusier and celebrated Bauhaus figures such as Ludwig Mies van der Rohe had in their modernist furniture.
Albini received his degree in architecture from the Polytechnic University of Milan in 1929, and, in 1931, he founded his practice in Milan, where he tackled workers’ housing and other reconstruction projects. A gifted urban planner, he also developed the Palazzo Bianco, Palazzo Rosso and Tesoro di San Lorenzo museums in Genoa. While Albini is revered for his Margherita chair — a Triennale Milano award winner created for Bonacina in 1951 — he also collaborated with manufacturers Poggi and Cassina in the 1940s on seating, tables and more that embodied his artistic vision. Of that mid-century work, the one piece that perhaps best captures this vision is the iconic Luisa chair.
With its cherry red upholstery and sinuous wooden legs that seem to float aboveground, the Luisa is a genuine masterpiece. It is also a testament to Albini’s perfectionism, as it endured several prototypes — including one made by Knoll in the late 1940s — and took approximately 15 years to design. Poggi launched the final version of the armchair in 1955, earning Albini the prestigious Compasso d’Oro from Italy’s Association for Industrial Design. It is produced today by Cassina. Albini named the chair for someone who likely saw the process firsthand: his personal secretary of two decades, Luisa Colombini.
Find vintage Franco Albini furniture on 1stDibs.
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Creator: Franco Albini
Carrello bar in legno ''CR20'' di Franco Albini per Poggi, Italia, 1958
By Poggi, Franco Albini
Located in Quarrata, IT
Carrello bar disegnato da Franco Albini per Poggi, struttura in legno.
Produzione Poggi, Italia, 1958.
Category
1950s Italian Vintage Franco Albini Carts and Bar Carts
Materials
Wood
1960s Gorgeous Magazine Rack by Franco Albini, Made in Italy
By Franco Albini
Located in Milano, IT
1960s Gorgeous and elegant serving bar cart in bamboo & rattan by Franco Albini. The structure featuring two shelves, the lower one features six bottle holders. Made in Italy. The ca...
Category
1960s Italian Mid-Century Modern Vintage Franco Albini Carts and Bar Carts
Materials
Bamboo
Italian Mid-Century Modern Bamboo and Rattan Bar / Serving Cart by Franco Albini
By Franco Albini
Located in New York, NY
Rare and important Italian Mid-Century Modern rattan and glass bar or serving cart by Franco Albini. The piece is unique in linking traditional materials (rattan, bamboo) with an ope...
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Mid-20th Century Italian Mid-Century Modern Franco Albini Carts and Bar Carts
Materials
Bamboo, Rattan
Italian Mid-Century Modern Bamboo & Rattan Bar Cart by Franco Albini
By Franco Albini
Located in New York, NY
Rare and important Italian Mid-Century Modern rattan and glass bar or serving cart by Franco Albini. The piece is unique in linking traditional materials (rattan, bamboo) with an ope...
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Mid-20th Century Italian Mid-Century Modern Franco Albini Carts and Bar Carts
Materials
Bamboo, Rattan, Glass
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Franco Albini was born in Robbiate in 1905, and after his childhood and part of his youth, he moved to Milan.
He graduated at Politecnico of Milan, Faculty of Architecture, in 1929, and He collaborated for three years in Giò Ponti and Emilio Lancia’s office. He probably had his international contacts here, at The International Exposition of 1929 in Barcelona and Paris, where he visited le Corbusier’s office, as Franca Helg used to tell.
Throughout these first three years, his works were undoubtedly related to XIXth Century. His meeting with Edoardo Persico marks an evident turnover towards rationalism and writers for “Casabella” magazine. Persico’s thoughtful and ironical comments on some of Albini’s drawings for office furniture caused him deep upsetting. “I spent days of real anxiety – tells Albini – I had to answer all questions. I had a long fever”.
The new phase that the meeting provoked begins with opening his own first office at Via Panizza with Renato Camus and Giancarlo Palanti. The group of Architects starts taking care of social housing, participating in the competition for the Baracca neighborhood in 1932, and then realizing the Ifacp neighborhood: Fabio Filzi (1936/38), Gabriele D’Annunzio, and Ettore Ponti (1939).
During those years, He also worked for his first private villa (Pestarini).
It is mainly in the context of exhibitions that the Italian architect experiments the compromise between rigor and poetic fantasy that Pagano was talking about; He conceived all the elements that would become recurrent in all types of his work – Architecture, Interiors, Design. The 1933 opening of the new Triennale of Milano, in Palazzo dell’Arte, becomes an occasion to express the highly innovative character of rationalist thinking. In this place, to experiment with new materials and solutions, but most of all a “method”.
Young rationalist architects cultivated the art of exhibiting as a communication lab, an open field to space solutions.
Albini, with Giancarlo Palanti, sets the steel structure house (with R. Camus, G. Mazzoleni, G. Minoletti and coordination by G. Pagano) designing also its furniture. For the next Triennale in 1936, marked by Persico’s early death, Franco Albini, together with a group of young architects around Pagano, takes care of the exhibition of Dwelling, where he presented 3 types of lodgings.
In the same year, Albini and Romano design the exhibition for Ancient Italian jewelry: vertical uprights, simple linear poles design space. This element is recurring in other works, like the Scipione exhibition (1941), Vanzetti stand (1942), and Olivetti shop in Paris (1956). The architectural space is readable through a grid, introducing a third dimension, the vertical one, with a sense of lightness and transparency.
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Franco Albini carts and bar carts for sale on 1stDibs.
Franco Albini carts and bar carts are available for sale on 1stDibs. These distinctive items are frequently made of rattan and are designed with extraordinary care. There are many options to choose from in our collection of Franco Albini carts and bar carts, although brown editions of this piece are particularly popular. Many of the original carts and bar carts by Franco Albini were created in the mid-century modern style in italy during the mid-20th century. If you’re looking for additional options, many customers also consider carts and bar carts by Willy Rizzo, Lorenzo Burchiellaro, and Morex. Prices for Franco Albini carts and bar carts can differ depending upon size, time period and other attributes — on 1stDibs, these items begin at $5,562 and can go as high as $9,500, while a piece like these, on average, fetch $9,500.
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