It was Cassina that pioneered the collaboration of architects and designers to imagine modern Italian furniture and then translate their visions into beautifully rendered sofas, chaise lounges and other home décor. Franco Albini, Erik Gunnar Asplund, Le Corbusier, Jeanneret, Perriand, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Charlotte Perriand, Vico Magistretti, Gerrit Thomas Rietveld, and Frank Lloyd Wright comprised its first generation of noted designers.
Famous for its collaborations with two-dozen world-renowned furniture designers, Cassina makes its rich designs and Italian masterpieces of contemporary furniture exclusively available through Arkitektura San Francisco and Arkitektura Detroit in Birmingham, Michigan.
In the 1950s, Cassina showed the way in industrial design in Italy, leading a shift from handcraftsmanship to serial production. Today, even with its output managed with fully industrial logic, Cassina sustains the authenticity of a hand-made product filled with respect for man and nature.
To achieve this, Cassina has nurtured its traditional passion for carpentry, for which it is known worldwide. While its works are organized on an industrial basis that makes the most of sophisticated machinery, its hub is centered on handcrafted modern Italian furniture using wood and other materials, especially leather and fabrics for its sofas, chaise lounges, chairs and other furnishings.
“Innovative Italian designed sofas and chaise lounges are among the broad offering of Cassina home furnishings, including tables, beds, desks, cabinets and special edition furniture, brought to you by Arkitektura San Francisco and Arkitektura Detroit in Birmingham, Michigan,” explains Andrew Fisher, Arkitektura Owner. “Cassina’s contemporary designer roster is simply extraordinary and includes Mario Bellini, Jean Louis Berthet, Piero De Martini, Paolo Deganello, Rodolfo Dordoni, Gianfranco Frattini, Cuno Frommherz, Konstantin Grcic, Patrick Jouin, Markus Jehs and Juergen Laub, and Piero Lissoni.”
Cassina uses its notable inclination for research to spark a rare and creative dialogue between the most talented designers of the 21st century. The result is a blend of stimulating ideas from which Cassina obtains uniqueness and absolute quality for each of its pieces.
Continuous innovation by Cassina delivers surprising opportunities for expression in modern furniture, and this represents the best of Italian design. Experimentation in new materials and with new structural technology has liberated Cassina and its proud clientele from the typical formal paradigms of lesser furniture.
Let’s consider some highlights of Cassina’s remarkable history of innovation:
The Superleggera chair (1957) by Gio Ponti reveals an iconic and completely modern interpretation of the Ligurian “chiavarina” chair, its expert woodworking creating a synthesis of solidity and lightness that is incomparable.
Model 932 (1965), designed by Mario Bellini, in which the upholstery itself becomes the armchair. “Ciprea” (1968) by Afra and Tobia Scarpa, shatters the stereotype of the padded armchair with a single piece in expanded polyurethane.
“I Feltri’” (1987) designed by Gaetano Pesce realizes a soft armchair-sculpture created out of specially treated felt. “Privé” (2007) is the leather chair system of Philippe Starck that expresses classicism with elegant capitonné workmanship.
The renewal of existing products cannot be achieved by technological innovation alone. Renewal is innovation, or as Cassina so eloquently expresses it, “Real paths of development through research and experimentation in new ways of living.” Each year sees the advent of new furniture to satisfy the needs of potential clientele.