Colorama Furniture

Known for his innovative style and ongoing exploration of the potential of materials, Matteo Zorzenoni has garnered critical acclaim as one of Italy’s most talented, up-and-coming furniture designers.   

Born in 1978 in Treviso, Zorzenoni studied art and design at the Art Institute before he attended IED (Istituto Europeo di Design) in Venice, graduating in 2001 with a degree in industrial design. After graduation, Zorzenoni worked at the Luav University of Venice for several years as an assistant for professors and designers Riccardo Blumer, Denis Santachiara and Marc Sadler, and later as a lecturer.

From 2004 to 2008, Zorzenoni worked as a consultant for studio Fabrica di Benetton, then began a long-term collaboration with Spanish furniture designer Jaime Hayon. Together, Zorzenoni and Hayon head the Italian branch of Fabrica.

When creating his modern furniture designs, Zorzenoni focuses on unlocking the potential of materials such as glass, marble, concrete and metal — elements he incorporates in many of his pieces. His inventive use of materials has led to several high-profile collaborations with notable European manufacturers. For instance, Zorzenoni designed the Crystal Ball vase for Italian company Cappellini, a collection of marble coffee tables called Chap for manufacturer Miniforms and, for MM Lampadari, a series of elegant and sculptural chandeliers, floor lamps, table lamps and decorative lighting. 

Zorzenoni’s most prolific collaboration to date is with Italian furniture brand Scapin Collezioni. For Scapin, he has designed several of his most popular pieces such as the Cantilever wood and marble side tables, Ellipse dining room tables, distinctive Settebello sideboards and credenzas, the Òblo cabinet and the Bent, Clip and Cathedral mirrors.

Throughout his design career, Zorzenoni has participated in several exhibitions worldwide including the London Design Festival, Triennale di Milano, MAXXI in Rome, the Biennale of Architecture in Venice and more.

On 1stDibs, discover a range of Matteo Zorzenoni tables, case pieces and storage cabinets and lighting.

The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw sweeping social change and major scientific advances — both of which contributed to a new aesthetic: modernism. Rejecting the rigidity of Victorian artistic conventions, modernists sought a new means of expression. References to the natural world and ornate classical embellishments gave way to the sleek simplicity of the Machine Age. Architect Philip Johnson characterized the hallmarks of modernism as “machine-like simplicity, smoothness or surface [and] avoidance of ornament.”

Early practitioners of modernist design include the De Stijl (“The Style”) group, founded in the Netherlands in 1917, and the Bauhaus School, founded two years later in Germany.

Followers of both groups produced sleek, spare designs — many of which became icons of daily life in the 20th century. The modernists rejected both natural and historical references and relied primarily on industrial materials such as metal, glass, plywood, and, later, plastics. While Bauhaus principals Marcel Breuer and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe created furniture from mass-produced, chrome-plated steel, American visionaries like Charles and Ray Eames worked in materials as novel as molded plywood and fiberglass. Today, Breuer’s Wassily chair, Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona chair — crafted with his romantic partner, designer Lilly Reich — and the Eames lounge chair are emblems of progressive design and vintage originals are prized cornerstones of collections.

It’s difficult to overstate the influence that modernism continues to wield over designers and architects — and equally difficult to overstate how revolutionary it was when it first appeared a century ago. But because modernist furniture designs are so simple, they can blend in seamlessly with just about any type of décor. Don’t overlook them.