Francois Monnet Smoked Glass and Steel Squared French Coffee Table, 1970s

Elegant brass, chrome and smoked glass square coffee table. Romeo Rega designed this elegant coffee table during the 1970s in Italy. The unique combination of straight and pure lines with superb materials, makes this item a go-to for Italian midcentury lovers. This piece smoked glass top will add seductive elegance to a midcentury living room or a studio. Measures (cms): width - 70 depth - 70 height - 40 Romeo Rega is born in Rome on 10 October 1925, third of six children, born and raised in the Trastevere district, in the heart of Rome. In 1943 , at the age of 18, he joins the army as a driver, a position that he holds for the next two years. In 1945, the year of Liberation, he comes into contact with whom he himself calles “the Master”, an excellent blacksmith and forger, from whom he learnes the art of iron. This way he starts his path after his father Piero, also a craftsman. Nine years later he gets married and opens a small shop in Via della Pelliccia, in the Trastevere district. Here he starts to work wrought iron, discovering himself capable of inventing, designing and realizing gates, railings and iron furniture. He is 27 years old when, in 1957, he enrolls in the Albo provinciale delle imprese artigiane (Provincial Register of Craft Enterprises) and opens his first workshop in Vicolo della Frusta 6, where he collaborates with talented masters of wrought iron and forging. At this point arrives the first important order: the design and manufacturing for Cinecittà of the chariots for the American colossal film Ben-Hur, which will be published in 1959. He stays in Vicolo della Frusta until the end of the 1960s, a period in which he dedicated himself to his favorite activity: the design of his own pieces and the relations with people. Among his clients there are personalities from the world of cinema and entertainment, such as Marcello Mastroianni, Renato Rascel and his wife Giuditta Saltarini, Massimo Ranieri. In 1970 he met the filmmaker Massimo Saraceni who encouraged him to broaden his entrepreneurial horizons. The 1970s represent a real revolution for the Italian culture, here start the “golden years” of design. In this roaring context, Romeo manages to apply with creativity the traditional methods usually used to process forging and wrought iron to new industrial materials such as brass, steel and perspex. This is how the famous “Romeo Rega” brand is born, and the serial production of his furniture starts in Vicolo Pian due Torri, in the Magliana district of Rome. The “four-rod” tables, the “Z-shaped” consoles...

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