Marcel Breuer - Gavina - Dining room chair (4) - Cesca

Lot of four Cesca chairs, produced by the prestigious Gavina company of San Lazzaro di Savena (Italy) during the late 1960s. Dino Gavina in 1968 in New York convinces Marcel Breuer to put his projects into production, including the Cesca chair, designed by Breuer in 1928. The commercial success of this chair was so important that the market was flooded with many more or more reproductions. less objectionable. The Gavina company, which had as president one of the most famous designers in Italy, such as Carlo Scarpa, was subsequently bought by Knoll which continues to this day the production of many Breuer's projects. The lot presented in this auction consists of 4 chairs dating back to the first Gavina production. This can be seen from the lower part of the frames where traces of the hand-made straw weaving are still visible. The chairs have been partially restored and are in good conditions of use with slight signs of use. The Vienna straw has been replaced over time on the seats and is now solid and taut. The backrests still have the original straw threaded "by hand" as was the case originally with wooden pegs in each hole to stop the weaving. The chromed tubular structures have been polished and show some signs of oxidation. Overall it can be said that the chairs are ready to be used for another fifty years. Gavina brands present under the seats "Design Radicale" includes transport insurance for Italy / Europe in the shipping costs indicated. Gavina Spa was founded by Dino Gavina in 1960, who assumed the role of managing director and called the architect Carlo Scarpa to the presidency. The historical headquarters of the company are located in San Lazzaro di Savena, in a building designed by Pier Giacomo Castiglioni in 1959. In 1963, thanks to state incentives for the development of southern Italy, Dino Gavina opens an office in Foligno. In 1962 Dino Gavina met Marcel Breuer in New York and convinced him to re-edit and carry out his projects from the 1920s. Among the designers who worked for the company: Pier Giacomo Castiglioni, Achille Castiglioni, Carlo Scarpa, Ignazio Gardella, Tobia Shoe. After the sale of the American company Knoll in 1968 and the closure of the Bolognese brand, several products from the Gavina collection were sold under the Knoll brand; some of them were later sold to other manufacturers (such as the Sanluca armchair) . Knoll still uses the Foligno office for the production of his own collection for European customers. Marcel Breuer In the early twenties he studied at the Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien in Vienna and at the Bauhaus school in Weimar (carpentry course) . At the age of 19, in 1921 he designed and built the African chair or romantic chair in hand-carved wood and designed fabrics. This chair, like most of the known prototypes of the Bauhaus, is handcrafted in the workshops. After a period of professional training in an architecture studio in Paris, he returned to the Bauhaus school from 1925 as a teacher and until 1928 he headed the furniture workshop. And under his direction from 1926 the workshops began to produce chairs and tables in tubular steel, including his famous chairs both in wood and back in fabric and in tubular iron with straw backrest through which he searches for new expressive solutions. New materials are also created such as eisengarn which will be used for the first time by Breuer in the Wassily Chair. In 1927 the patented industrial production of these furniture (including many designed by him) experienced a full swing. He designs the interiors of the Bauhaus in Dessau (1925/26) and for the home of the theater director Erwin Piscator in Berlin in 1927. In 1928, after the resignation of Walter Gropius, Breuer, along with László Moholy-Nagy and Herbert Bayer, also left the Bauhaus and together with Gropius opened an architecture studio in Berlin At the end of September 1932 the Bauhaus ceased its activities and after the advent of Nazism in 1933, many architects were forced to retire from the profession, in 1934 Breuer together with Gropius emigrated hastily to England. From 1935 to 1937 he worked in London, at the F. R. S. Yorke, for whom he designs aluminum furniture. From 1937 he moved to Harvard University, where he teaches architecture. From 1938 to 1941 he was in the studio with Walter Gropius. From this moment on he will pursue solutions that are not always as rigorous as the bell tower of Saint John's Abbey in Minnesota. In 1952 he collaborated with Pier Luigi Nervi and Bernhard Zerfhuss on the design of the UNESCO Palace in Paris, highlighting himself for the structure of the building. In 1956 he opened the Marcel Breuer and Associates studio.