Italian postmodern silver sofa and pouf Moon System by Zaha Hadid for B&B, 2007

Zaha Hadid left an indelible mark on the architectural world, transforming the look of contemporary architecture with her striking abstract and modernist designs. Fluid forms and Constructivist aesthetics — such as bold colors and softly angular edges — are the keynotes of her buildings and her furniture. Hadid’s work is the essence of energy and drama.

Born in Baghdad, Iraq, Hadid studied at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London and made that city her home for much of her life. Hadid’s design sensibility was formed more by art than architecture. In college, she was first inspired by the Russian avant-garde school of artists. The influence of painters such as Wassily Kandinsky and Kazimir Malevich is apparent in Hadid’s early work, in which she created abstract paintings and drawings to convey her ideas. The distortion of geometric shapes is a particularly prominent and recurring theme in her work. Hadid founded her firm in 1980, from which she launched architectural triumphs like the MAXXI Museum in Rome and the Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art at Cincinnati's Contemporary Arts Center.

Hadid’s furniture and sculptures provide her admirers with the chance to bring the beauty and drama of her architecture into their homes. These designs are true centerpieces that fill even staid rooms with fluidity and rhythm. The organic forms of her designs bring a sweeping sense of movement to stationary objects. The furniture exhibits a kind of playfulness and creates a relationship with the user. Hadid transformed furniture into fine art.

Find authentic Zaha Hadid tables, lighting and other works on 1stDibs.

In 1966, Piero Ambrogio Busnelli cofounded C&B Italia, a modern Italian furniture manufacturer, with Cesare Cassina in northern Milan. From the outset, Busnelli and Cassina set about recruiting the most talented modernists in Italy to conceive of creative furnishings manufactured in modern ways. In the early 1970s, the company split, with Cassina founding his own eponymous firm and Busnelli taking leadership of what became B&B Italia.

For decades, Busnelli cultivated relationships with the world’s best design talent, resulting in furniture pieces that remain iconic today — be they Gaetano Pesce’s outwardly curvaceous Up seating (made for C&B, reintroduced by B&B) or tables from industrial designer Paolo Piva, each more sophisticated than the next in their geometrically complex steel-tube bases. B&B Italia earned four prestigious Compasso d’Oro design awards: in 1979 for Mario Bellini’s Le Bambole, in 1984 for the Sisamo wardrobe system by Studio Kairos, in 1987 for Antonio Citterio’s modular Sity sofa and, in 1989, the first award given to a manufacturing company itself.

Other notable names who designed for B&B Italia over the course of its 54-year history include Patricia Urquiola, Naoto Fukasawa, Zaha Hadid, Ettore Sottsass and Vincent Van Duysen, to name a very few. And while these names bring star power to the B&B brand, in many cases, it was B&B Italia who helped usher in their celebrity, fostering a wave of design talent on the world stage.

The company’s forward-thinking vision manifested in its own headquarters, too: In 1972, B&B Italia tapped architects Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers to design a steel-framed, postmodern-style home for the brand, whose crisscrossing metal exoskeleton is reminiscent of the pair’s Centre Pompidou in Paris, which was built at roughly the same time. Now, B&B Italia manages a contract division and outdoor section as well as its residential arm, and it also controls production for Maxalto, a brand spun out with furniture designs by Antonio Citterio.

At 1stDibs, find a range of vintage B&B Italia furniture — including sofas, cocktail tables and more.