VM3 Chairs by Vico Magistretti for Fritz Hansen, 1990s

Learn More About Vico Magistretti

Architect and industrial designer Ludovico ‘Vico’ Magistretti was born in Milan in 1920. After graduating from the Faculty of Architecture at the Royal Polytechnic in Milan in 1945, he immediately began his career working for his father’s small architectural firm. Magistretti notably took part in the ninth (1955) and tenth (1956) editions of the prestigious Triennials in Milan, where he won the Gold Medal and Grand Prix respectively. As a young architect in the 1950s, Vico Magistretti was brimming with new ideas and proposals, which saw him rise to the status of one of the most brilliant exponents of the “third generation.” During this period Vico Magistretti worked for such companies as Artemide , Cassina, De Padova, Flou, Fritz Hansen , Kartell and Schiffini.

Vico Magistretti’s best known pieces

Magistretti’s skill as a designer blossomed in the 1950s, when he moved into the field of mass-produced furniture and lamps. Working with craftsmen and entrepreneurs who had long produced furniture in areas north of Milan, Vico Magistretti’s first great success came in the form of the internationally acclaimed Carimate chair (1960) produced by the Cassina company. Designed for a golf club he was working on that same year, the Carimate chair combined rural simplicity with urban sophistication. The bright pop of red mixed with the smooth lines of the wooden supports further contribute to the chair’s worldwide success. Magistretti’s style oozed simplicity and elegance, and his pieces concealed the complexities of production. His world famous Eclisse lamp (1967) could ‘eclipse’ the light source and the lamp itself, by moving the rotating inner shades of the structure.

Vico Magistretti’s legacy

Vico Magistretti won numerous awards across the globe for his design classics, including the Compasso d’Oro award in 1967 for the Eclisse lamp. Magistretti’s designs can be seen in museums and galleries around the world, including twelve of his projects in the permanent design collection of MoMA, New York. After Magistretti passed away in September 2006, his studio was converted into a museum devoted to the study of his work.

Danish cabinetmaker Fritz Hansen founded his eponymous furniture manufacturing company with his son Christian in Copenhagen in 1885. The first three decades were dedicated to hand-making wood and iron frames for upholstered furniture. In 1915, however, Christian began to introduce industrial processes, such as steam-bending wood, which enabled the family business to mass-produce at a larger scale.

In 1932, Christian brought in his own sons, Fritz and Søren, who updated the product line to include more modernist styles, like Søren’s Thonet-inspired DAN Chair (1930) and a cantilevered wicker and tubular steel chair by architect Mogens Lassen (1933). Other early classics in the Fritz Hansen catalog include Kaare Klint’s Church Chair (1936), Hans Wegner’s China Chair (1944), and Børge Mogensen’s Spoke Back Sofa (1945).

During the 1950s—thanks especially to the contributions of architect Arne Jacobsen—Fritz Hansen entered its golden era, creating some of the most iconic Scandinavian designs of the 20th century. Arne Jacobsen’s Ant Chair (1952), Swan Sofa (1958) and Egg Chair & Ottoman (1958), as well as later designs by Verner Panton, Piet Hein, and Grete Jalk, all helped to cement Fritz Hansen’s legacy as one of the most beloved producers of high quality, simple-yet-elegant, Danish modern furniture.

In 1979, after 107 years of family ownership, Fritz Hansen was bought out by Skandinavisk Holding and is now known as The Republic of Fritz Hansen. Pieces from the company’s long history can be found in nearly every design museum collection there is, from MoMA and Cooper Hewitt in New York to the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney. Arne Jacobsen’s collaboration with Fritz Hansen was the subject of the Siéntate Siéntete exhibition, hosted by the Chamber of Architects in Madrid in 2010.  

* All images courtesy of Republic of Fritz Hansen.