OSVALDO BORSANI - BIOGRAPHY



Osvaldo Borsani was born in Varedo (Milan) in 1911, twin of Fulgenzio within he will share all his work during his life.
The family works in a “furniture atelier”: the father, Gaetano Borsani, realizes at the beginning of the 20's integral furnitures on design by looking at the ébénisteries déco of that time. At the fifth edition of Triennale di Milano, in 1933, Osvaldo signs, as young student, a project entirely rationalist: the “Casa Minima”.
In 1932 he has already his project space in Milan: “ ABV Arredamenti Borsani”. With the Futurism movement he experiments a relation between handcraft and art that develops collaborations, after the war, with artists such as Aligi Sassu, Agenore Fabbri, Arnaldo and Giò Pomodoro, Roberto Crippa, Fausto Melotti, Lucio Fontana, Andrea Cascella. During the 50's Osvaldo Borsani understands that the integral furnishing on demand is leaving space to single production of industrial furnitures: from handcraft to the project; from the atelier to the factory. So, at the tenth edition of the Triennale of Milan in 1954, the nascent Tecno presents the sofa “a farfalla” D70, within the “chaise longue” P40 is still an icon of italian design.
A new project is proposed to the Borsanis: the furniture for the new ENI offices of Enrico Mattei in San Donato (1956).
It is not about a house, it's about an office and the community, big companies and environments with high attendance.
At the fourteenth edition of the Triennale della Contestazione (1968), Osvaldo Borsani presents the Graphis system for offices: pure geometry in white metal for each office function ( meetings, formation, common spaces and representing spaces).
It is the “democracy of the shape” which represents one of the most coherent affirmations of italian design in the world.
In 1970, Osvaldo Borsani creates the “Centro Progetti Tecno” with Marco Fantoni and Valeria Fantoni Borsani: a team that can conceives architectures and new products. Afterwards, the Centro Progetti Tecno collaborates with Gae Aulenti, Norman Foster, Renzo Piano, Richard rogers, Emilio Ambasz, Ricardo Bofill, Jean-Michel Wilmotte and others.