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Gianfranco Frattini drawer cabinet Bernini Italy 1957

About the Item

This special drawer console table was designed by Gianfranco Frattini and made by Bernini in Italy in 1957. Versatility is the main feature of tis piece. You can use it in the middle of a room, as a coffee table, as a divider, a console table, a TV stand, or simply as a side table. The console has 4 drawers, each with elegant integrated handles, for storing small items. The rosewood veneer on this piece is beautiful, with a unique grain pattern. The front of the drawers looks like a piece of art because the design is perfectly symmetrical. You'll find the original Bernini sticker inside the left drawer. The console is in good original condition. Gianfranco Frattini was born in Padua, Italy on May 15, 1926. He graduated with a degree in architecture from the Politecnico di Milano in 1953. He later became a member of the generation that created the Italian design movement in the late 1950s through the 1960s. Frattini opened his own professional practice in Milan, after having worked in the office of his teacher and mentor Gio Ponti. Frattini became an industrial designer by default when he lacked appropriate lighting and furniture for his interiors. His collaboration with Cesare Cassina for his namesake company started in 1954, followed by collaborations with many other manufacturers, such as Bernini, Arteluce, Acerbis, Fantoni, Artemide (for whom among others pieces with Livio Castiglioni he designed the historic Boalum lamp), Luci, Knoll, Lema and many others. In 1956 he co-founded Associazione per il Disegno Industriale and throughout his career he practiced both industrial design and architecture, focusing mostly on interiors. He was a board member of the Triennale. Great connoisseur of wood craftsmanship, he forged a long and fruitful professional partnership with the master craftsman from Bovisio Masciago (Milan), Pierluigi Ghianda. Glassware designed by Gianfranco Frattini for Progetti is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art and the Boalum lamp (with Livio Castiglioni) produced by Artemide is in the collection of the Smithsonian, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum.

Creator:

Gianfranco Frattini (Designer),Bernini (Manufacturer)

Dimensions:

Height: 15.36 in (39 cm)Width: 55.12 in (140 cm)Depth: 20.48 in (52 cm)

Style:

Mid-Century Modern (In the Style Of)

Materials and Techniques:

Rosewood

Place of Origin:

Italy

Period:

1950-1959

Date of Manufacture:

1957

Condition:

Wear consistent with age and use.

Seller Location:

Roosendaal, NL

Reference Number:

1stDibs: LU933038103892

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Shop All Gianfranco Frattini

Gianfranco Frattini

Gianfranco Frattini is widely regarded as a mid-century master of Italian modern design. He was an award-winning architect and designer, and specialized in creating furniture and decor that is both decorative and practical — Frattini’s vintage desks, armchairs, nesting tables and other works are celebrated for their sophisticated merging of function and form.

Born in Padua in 1926, Frattini studied architecture at the Polytechnic University of Milan. He later apprenticed with his teacher and mentor, Gio Ponti. Through Ponti — arguably the most important figure in 20th-century Italian architecture and design — Frattini met many notable modernist designers such as Oscar Niemeyer and Le Corbusier, but an introduction to famed Italian entrepreneur Cesare Cassina would prove incredibly significant in helping launch his career.

During the mid-1950s, Frattini began to collaborate with Cassina’s eponymous company. He designed the brand’s acclaimed leather and walnut Model 849 lounge chair — a winner of the Compasso d’Oro award — the Marema nesting tables and the iconic Sesann collection. The latter, an enduring 1970s suite of impossibly welcoming leather-covered seating, is now produced by Tacchini. In addition to Cassina, Frattini created furniture and lighting for other manufacturers such as Bernini, Arteluce, Artemide, Knoll and more.

While many of his designs incorporate glass, tubular steel and other materials, Frattini loved working with wood. The sculptural Albero bookcase — an innovative floor-to-ceiling structure made in walnut that swings on a 360-degree vertical swivel axis — is a striking example of Frattini’s dedication to traditional woodworking techniques. In the early 1970s, he traveled to Japan with friend and collaborator Pierluigi Ghianda — a master Milanese cabinet maker — in order to study the work of artisans in Kyoto. The trip inspired his design of the Kyoto table, a work of solid beech with Canaletto walnut inserts that is part of the permanent collection of the Milan Triennale’s Design Museum. The Kyoto and Albero have been revived by Poltrona Frau.

Frattini’s designs are in the permanent collections of prestigious museums such as the Museum of Modern Art and the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.

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