Desk by Fabio Lenci for Bernini, 1970s

Italian designer Fabio Lenci’s bold Space Age furniture exudes a spirit of adventure and playfulness. Experimenting with plexiglass for the framework of his famous Hyaline lounge chairs and sofas, for instance, he made seating that creates the illusion of a sitter suspended in the air.

Lenci was born in 1935 in Rome, where his father was an industrial manufacturer. He initially entered the Italian Air Force and later pursued decorating and product design. Lenci’s career took shape in 1962 and he quickly made a name for himself, winning the Trieste award in 1965 for his innovative kitchen design.

In the late 1960s, and throughout the ’70s, Lenci collaborated extensively with Bernini and Italian lighting company Guzzini. The latter partnership produced an array of more than 400 pendants, floor lamps, table lamps and other fixtures that look like lighting from the future.

In 2016, Lenci received the prestigious Compasso d'Oro award for a lifetime of forward-looking design. His pieces are found in museums throughout the world, including a Chain armchair in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. He has created hundreds of products over the course of his career and continues to design out of his studio in Rome, and his work is celebrated by critics and collectors everywhere. 

On 1stDibs, explore Fabio Lenci’s futuristic tables, seating and lighting.

From his early start at his father’s boutique furniture and cabinetry atelier — Arredamenti Borsani (ABV) — Italian designer Osvaldo Borsani began to steadily dream to life the movement-inducing pieces that would eventually lead to him founding his innovative furniture company, Tecno, with his twin brother, Fulgenzio. 

Born in the commune of Varedo in northern Italy’s Lombardy region, Borsani studied at the Brera Academy in Milan — the same school attended by such luminaries as designer Piero Fornasetti and artist Lucio Fontana — as well as the Polytechnic University of Milan. He first worked for the family furniture-making firm, ABV, an atelier influenced by the more expressive and curvaceous wing of Art Deco design. Borsani took over Arredamenti Borsani in 1937.

With his stylish and technically innovative furniture, Borsani helped change the face of Italian design in the 1950s and ’60s. His sofas and chairs, featuring deeply upholstered seating and adjustable position settings, have an aura of optimism and efficiency that still seems fresh and lively today.

While he is today recognized as a master of mid-century modernist Italian furniture, Borsani is most famous these days for cofounding Tecno. (He and Fulgenzio also created Villa Borsani, a visionary mid-century estate cherished for its modern lines and exquisite custom furnishings.) 

When Borsani opened Tecno, an office-focused maker of industrial design, his design sensibilities had evolved toward furnishings with strong, simple forms enhanced by mechanical innovations, as with the P40 adjustable armchair.

When they were originally released, Tecno pieces like the P40 and the award-winning D70 sofa bed were acclaimed as cutting-edge, and they are still considered groundbreaking in their adaptability and functionality. The firm quickly garnered widespread acclaim for its tech-forward designs and quality craftsmanship.

Borsani would be Tecno’s lead designer for 30 years, while partnering on projects with the likes of architect Eugenio Gerli and fostering work by Vico Magistretti, Carlo De Carli, Robin Day and others.

Borsani designed pieces for Tecno until shortly before his death in 1985, when his daughter Valeria and her husband, Marco Fantoni, took over the creative work. 

Today, the family’s legacy is preserved by Borsani’s architect grandson Tommaso Fantoni, who, along with Norman Foster, curated a blockbuster retrospective of Osvaldo Borsani’s work at Milan’s Triennale Design Museum in 2018.

Find vintage Tecno chairs, tables, desks and other furniture on 1stDibs.