Abat Jour Table Lamp in Black Marble by Cini Boeri for Arteluce, 1970s

Born in 1924 in Milan, Cini Boeri is an award-winning industrial designer, architect, and interior designer. Along with Gae Aulenti, she was one of the few female Italian designers to enjoy international success in the postwar era. Her work has consistently underscored the psychological connection between humans and their environment.

After graduating from the Polytechnic University in Milan in 1951, she interned at Giò Ponti’s architectural firm before working for many years with designer Marco Zanuso. In 1963, Boeri founded her eponymous architecture studio, focusing on industrial design as well as civil architecture. She created many modern Italian design classics, including the Bobo Lounge (1967), which was the first exclusively foam Monobloc seat; the 602 Table Lamp (1968); the polyurethane Serpentone Lounge (1971) that was sold by the meter; the modular Strips Series (1972, awarded the Compasso D’Oro in 1979); the sculpted glass Cibi Tumbler (1973), the Ghost Armchair (1987 in collaboration with Tomu Katayanagi); and the Bortolo Chair (2014).

Over the course of her career, Boeri has collaborated with some of the biggest Italian and international brands including Arflex, Artemide, Rosenthal, Knoll, Magis , Venini, Fiam, Misawa Homes, Tre-P Tre-Piu, Tronconi, and Philips. Her most celebrated architectural projects include The Domestic Project, first exhibited at the 1986 Triennale; The Bunker House (1967) on the island of La Maddalena; Casa nel Bosco (1969) near Lago Maggiore; and the Apartment on Three Levels in central Milan (2006).

As well as winning the Compasso d’Oro for the Strip Series, Boeri has been the recipient of many prestigious international prizes, including a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Italian Cultural Institute of Los Angeles in 2008; she was nominated as an honorary member of ADI in 2012. She has held many esteemed positions at several international institutions and universities, including the Politecnico di Milano, UC Berkeley, UCLA, and the University of Lugano in Switzerland. Her work can be found in Milan Triennale Design Museum and New York's MoMA.

For more information about Boeri's unique design philosophy, check out The Human Dimension of Home Living (Franco Angeli: Milan, 1980).

* Images courtesy of Cini Boeri Architetti

Italian lighting design company Arteluce was established in 1939 by the young Venetian designer-entrepreneur Gino Sarfatti. Political upheaval at the time forced Sarfatti to abandon his aeronautical engineering degree in Genoa and move with his family to Milan. There, despite a lack of formal design training, Sarfatti embarked on a lighting career. Yet it is arguably because he was wholly self-taught that Sarfatti immersed himself in the full lifecycle of the design process, from conception to production, collaborating with artisans and architects to create stronger, lighter, and cheaper modernist lamps than Italy has seen before.

In 1973, Sarfatti sold his business to Flos and retired to Lake Como. Many Arteluce creations are still in production today, and several original models are housed permanently in important museums like MoMA in New York. Somewhat forgotten after merging with Flos, Sarfatti’s designs are experiencing a renaissance amongst vintage collectors following the first retrospective exhibition of his work at the Triennale Design Museum in Milan in 2012.

* Images courtesy of Flos