Franco Albini Sideboards
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
Franco Albini Italian Midcentury Dark Wood Sideboard for Poggi, 1950s
By Poggi, Franco Albini
Located in Reggio Emilia, IT
Italian Mid-Century Modern design credenza sideboard designed by Franco Albini and produced by Poggi Pavia from 1958, four doors with sliding shelves and a pull-out shelf / tray, sol...
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1850s Italian Mid-Century Modern Antique Franco Albini Sideboards
Materials
Wood
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Sideboard MB48 by Franco Albini for Poggi - 1960s
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Magnificent MB48 sideboard by Franco Albini for Poggi in the 1960s.
This impressive sideboard is composed of five individual modules that connect to each other. It is therefore comp...
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Mid-20th Century Italian Mid-Century Modern Franco Albini Sideboards
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Franco Albini Stunning wood MB15 Sideboard for Poggi, Italian Design 1950s
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Modern sideboard by Franco Albini for Poggi - 1950s Italy.
This design features a simplistic aesthetic with sharp lines. It has four compartments with doors. The sculptural legs giv...
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Mid-Century Modern Small Wooden Sideboard by Franco Albini, Italy, 1950s
By Franco Albini
Located in Brussels, BE
Mid-Century Modern Small Wooden Sideboard by Franco Albini, Italy, 1950s
Category
1950s Italian Mid-Century Modern Vintage Franco Albini Sideboards
Materials
Wood
Italian Franco Albini for Poggi Sideboard
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An Italian model MB 51 sideboard designed by Franco Albini for Poggi. Made of solid teak with a minimalist design and sharp lines.
Category
Mid-20th Century Italian Mid-Century Modern Franco Albini Sideboards
Materials
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Franco Albini MB15 Large Sideboard with Four-Doors Panels in Wood by Poggi 1950s
By Poggi, Franco Albini
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MB15 large sideboard with four-door panels in wood, designed by Franco Albini in 1956 and produced by Poggi, Pavia.
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1950s Italian Mid-Century Modern Vintage Franco Albini Sideboards
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Mid-Century Modern Sideboard MB15 by Fanco Albini for Poggi, Italy, 1950s
By Franco Albini
Located in Brussels, BE
Mid-Century Modern Sideboard MB15 by Fanco Albini for Poggi, Italy, 1950s
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1950s Vintage Franco Albini Sideboards
Materials
Wood
Sideboard with Bar Element by Franco Albini, Italy, 1930s
By Franco Albini
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Large four-door sideboard designed by Franco Albini in the 1930s. The Art Deco sideboard is veneered on all sides and fitted with chrome half-moon handles and set off by means of ver...
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1930s Italian Mid-Century Modern Vintage Franco Albini Sideboards
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Franco Albini, Pair of "MB15" sideboards for Poggi, Italy 1957
By Franco Albini
Located in Argelato, BO
Franco Albini, MB15 sideboard for Poggi, Italy 1957
The two cabinets are one of the most iconic and representative projects of the famous Italian architect and designer Franco Albin...
Category
1950s Italian Mid-Century Modern Vintage Franco Albini Sideboards
Materials
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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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Exceptional walnut sideboard model MB48.
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Published.
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Located in Reggio Emilia, IT
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H 30.52 in W 48.04 in D 18.51 in
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Franco Albini sideboards for sale on 1stDibs.
Franco Albini sideboards are available for sale on 1stDibs. These distinctive items are frequently made of wood and are designed with extraordinary care. There are many options to choose from in our collection of Franco Albini sideboards, although brown editions of this piece are particularly popular. Many of the original sideboards 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 sideboards by Dassi Mobili Moderni, Dassi, and Saporiti Italia. Prices for Franco Albini sideboards can differ depending upon size, time period and other attributes — on 1stDibs, these items begin at $2,663 and can go as high as $12,800, while a piece like these, on average, fetch $9,623.