Mario Bellini - B&B Italia - Sofa - Camaleonda

CHAMELEON: THE MOST WANTED! As Bellini himself says: "Camaleonda is a neologism that I invented in 1970 by crossing two words: the name of that extraordinary animal that is the chameleon capable of adapting to the environment in which it is found and the word wave that indicates the curves of the sea and desert. Both of these words describe the form and function of this session. " Camaleonda, the system designed by Mario Bellini in 1970 has over the years become an authentic icon of Italian design. Presented to the public in 1970, Camaleonda has gone through 5 decades of design history as an absolute protagonist. Designed by Mario Bellini, this modular sofa defined the interior design aesthetics of an era thanks to its great success with audiences and critics. . Camaleonda is extraordinary mainly in its aesthetic characteristics and versatility. The generous polyurethane padding that forms the characteristic capitonné, obtained through the innovative system of cables, hooks and rings designed by Bellini, which guarantee its appearance and modularity. In fact, thanks to tie rods and rings, the modules can be detached and recombined at will, allowing the sofa to adapt to the evolving taste and dynamic needs of those who use it. The fundamental characteristic of Camaleonda is its almost infinite modularity, a geometric nature that allows each element to become a sort of gigantic pixel through which to define one's own home environment. By hooking and unfastening seats, backrests and armrests, you can take luxury to change your mind as many times as you want, moving and redesigning the space. The composition presented in this auction consists of 3 large modules 3 back modules 2 armrest modules The living room was taken over from an important house near Milan where it remained for over 50 years. The modules are all covered in fine cognac-colored full-grain leather. The sofa is in excellent storage conditions. Structure and padding are solid and functional, the recently restored leather upholstery looks like new. Lanyard rings and hooks are complete. All modules have original B&B Camaleonda Bellini labels on the underside All elements of the living room have been thoroughly cleaned and sanitized Dimensions of each module cm. 96x96 h 69 "Design Radicale" includes transport insurance for Italy / Europe in the shipping costs indicated. For the "rest of the world" shipment the cost is indicative. We will formulate a quote at the end of the auction according to the destination. The same designer, Mario Bellini, of Camaleonda said: "At the threshold of the 70s, the upholstered domestic furniture still stagnated mostly between tired variations of the historical and elitist typologies of radical-provocative leaps forward, which - although stimulating - were hardly capable of questioning the relationship between the evolution of new behaviors in the domestic space and the types of furniture available on the market at the time ". Camaleonda, therefore, is not a simple sofa, but the symbol of change. Of transformation, of the passage from one era to the next. Mario Bellini is an architect and designer known all over the world. He has received the Compasso d'Oro Award eight times and 25 of his works are in the permanent collection of the Mo. MA in New York, which dedicated a retrospective to him in 1987. He was director of Domus magazine (1985-1991) . He has designed numerous art and architecture exhibitions both in Italy and abroad, including the latest ones at Palazzo Reale with Giotto's masterpieces (2016) and at the 1900s Museum dedicated to Margherita Sarfatti (2018-2019) . In 2015 the Milan Triennale awarded him the Gold Medal for Lifetime Achievement for Architecture and in 2017 dedicated a retrospective exhibition to him. Since 1980, he has mainly devoted himself to architecture. The buildings designed and built include the Portello District of Fiera Milano, the Exhibition and Congress Center of Villa Erba in Cernobbio (Como) , the Tokyo Design Center in Japan, the America Headquarters of Natuzzi in the United States, the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, the Headquarters of the Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt, the Museum of the History of the City of Bologna, the building for the Department of Islamic Arts in the Louvre in Paris, and the new Congress Center in Milan, the largest in Europe. The T3 international air terminal was recently completed in Rome-Fiumicino, while the new Headquarters of Generali Group in Trieste has just been inaugurated. The projects currently underway are the New Polytechnic School of Genoa (2006-2020) , a vast hotel and residential facility on Virgin Gorda Island in the British Virgin Islands (2018-2020) and the new RAI headquarters in Milan (2018-2020) . It has several projects under study, among which, the "Bin-County Project", a new city for entertainment, sport and culture in the Harbin district of China (2018-2023) and a large sports, cultural complex and residential "Oasis" in the Gulf countries (2014-2022) . C&B The company was founded in 1966 by the already well-known Cesare Cassina, of the family that owns the company of the same name, and by the younger Piero Ambrogio Busnelli as C&B (Cassina & Busnelli) with the idea of using the most innovative technologies to obtain a production broader [4] in a period in which the production of furniture is still linked to craftsmanship. In the sixties, through the injection molding technology discovered in London by Busnelli, [2] various furnishing elements were produced such as Up without frame (design Gaetano Pesce) , Coronado (design Afra and Tobia Scarpa) with only two screws. assemble, Lombrico (design Marco Zanuso) and Amanta (Mario Bellini) . In 1966 the company developed in collaboration with a Bayer representative [2] the technology of cold-foamed polyurethane in molds and applied it to the production of upholstered furniture. Coronado by Afra and Tobia Scarpa is the first upholstered furniture that uses this technology. In 1969 he created Serie Up with the designer Gaetano Pesce, the first collection of armchair seats packaged "under vacuum" capable of obtaining, in its maximum contraction, up to 90% less than the volume. B&B Italia - from the seventies to 2000 In 1972, the product Le Bambole was launched, with the design by Mario Bellini and awarded with the Compasso d'Oro the same year, with an advertising campaign by Oliviero Toscani which stars Andy Warhol's muse, Donna Jordan, in jeans, heeled legs in the air and topless. [2] [3] Busnelli commissioned the project for the B&B Italia headquarters in Novedrate from a young Renzo Piano, then twenty-three years old associated with Richard Rogers. The building, completed in 1973, consists of a unit suspended within a tubular steel and glass structure that anticipates the architecture of the famous Center Pompidou in Paris, later designed by the architects themselves. [2] [5] In 1973 Busnelli took over the shares of Cassina [2] and changed the name of the company to B&B Italia (where the first B, he said almost as a joke, indicated the banks that had given him help in the initiative) . [2] In 1974 the Sisamo wardrobe was designed, the first wardrobe with a patented opening system with coplanar doors which in 1984 won the Compasso d'oro award again in 1987 for the Sity seating system designed by Antonio Citterio and, the year subsequently, it is assigned to the company “for the constant integration work carried out in order to combine the values of technical-scientific research with those necessary for the functionality and expressiveness of the products”. At that time, the first of his sons, Giorgio (just over twenty) joined Piero ("Pierino") Busnelli, later Giancarlo in 1976 and Emanuele in 1991 joined the company as well. [2] Precisely in 1991, when the company entered into a joint venture with Costa Cruises for the furnishing of ships (Pierino Busnelli wanted to deal directly with this, who died at the age of 88 in January 2014) , [5] Giorgio took over the management of the company, starting it the internationalization phase. [2] 2000s and 2010s In 2003, 51. 4% of B&B Italia (which has JP Morgan as its advisor) was sold to the Opera fund, a start-up in the sector. [6] While the Busnelli brothers focus on the research center, the management of the company goes to a new team of managers with results that Giorgio Busnelli will later define "questionable": [6] in eight years three directors and eighteen managers change while the requests are continuous cost reduction. So in 2011 (the third generation has already entered the company with Massimiliano, Giorgio's son) [2] the Busnellis buy back for about sixty million what they have sold and regain control of the company. In the years 2011-2012, Husk was born, the seating family designed by Patricia Urquiola and Tobi-Hishi, design Barber & Osgerby, after the Bend-Sofa by Urquiola and the Shelf. X bookcase by Naoto Fukasawa [2] were previously born. In March 2012 the company acquired 25% of Moooi, a Dutch design company founded by Marcel Wanders and Casper Vissers and specialized in furnishing accessories and lighting. [7] After refusing offers from two multinationals (the Knoll group, listed on Wall Street, and Haworth, owner of Poltrona Frau, Cassina and Cappellini) , [8] in June 2015 the Busnellis sold 80% of the capital of B&B Italia to the fund of private equity) Investindustrial by Andrea Bonomi. [9] However, the management of the company remains in the hands of Giorgio Busnelli, a minority shareholder with his brother Emanuele. [9] In September 2016, B&B Italia entered the high-end kitchens segment by taking over 70% of Arcilinea, a Vicenza-based company of the Fortuna family which remains as a minority shareholder with Silvio Fortuna as president. [1]