ITALIAN 20thC MARALUNGA SOFA IN ORIGINAL RED FABRIC BY VICO MAGISTRETTI

DESCRIPTION

A 2-seater “675 Maralunga” sofa in red fabric. The Maralunga sofa was designed by Vico Magistretti in the early 1970s for Cassina. Cosy and adaptable, the ever cool sofa was an instant classic. Comfort comes in 2 forms with a backrests that individually fold up for relaxation and head support and down more attentive moments. This particular example dates to the latter part of the 20th century and is in great condition.

The sofa’s manufacturer and designer has incredible pedigree. The "Amedeo Cassina" company was created by the brothers Cesare and Umberto Cassina in 1927 in Brianza, Italy. After the war, Cassina continued to expand in size and fame, with products which covered a broad range of furniture including: chairs, armchairs, tables, sofas and beds. The company's transformation was bolstered further by commissions for cruise ships, top end hotels and restaurants which accounted for a great part of the company's activity right up to the mid-sixties and beyond.

In 1964 the "Cassina, I Maestri" (Cassina Masters) Collection was born, with the acquisition of the rights to products designed by Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand, the most important names of 20th century design. These included the LC1, LC2, and LC3 armchairs, and the LC4 chaise longue. Today Cassina is the exclusive worldwide licensee of the Le Corbusier designs.

The "Cassina, I Maestri" collection was widened in 1968 with the acquisition from Bauhaus-Archiv in Berlin of reproduction rights to some of the Bauhaus objects and in 1971 the designs of Gerrit Rietveld, Frank Lloyd Wright, and of Charles Rennie Mackintosh in 1972. The Masters collection continued with the re-issue in 1983 of furniture by Erik Gunner Asplund, the acquisition from the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation of rights of reproduction (1986) of furniture by Frank Lloyd Wright, including the Barrel chair (1937), and, finally, in 2004 furniture by Charlotte Perriand. The 1972 New York MoMA exhibition, "Italy: the New Domestic Landscape" curated by Emilio Ambasz was co-sponsored by Cassina. In 2005 Cassina was purchased by the Poltrona Frau Group.

Ludovico Magistretti (1920 - 2006) was an Italian designer and architect. Born into a middle-class Milanese family, Vico Magistretti attended the Parini classical high school and then enrolled in the Faculty of Architecture of the Royal Polytechnic of Milan, where leading figures in the architectural panorama of the time such as Gio Ponti and Piero Portaluppi taught. Between 1943 and 1944 he decided, like many intellectuals of the time, to leave his own country and moved to Switzerland where he was able to follow some academic courses. His acquaintance with Ernesto Nathan Rogers dates back to that period, and will remain in the architect's memory as a key person in his intellectual formation. In 1945 he returned to Milan, where he graduated in Architecture at the Polytechnic. In 1956 he was one of the founding members of ADI, the Association for Industrial Design. His latest design projects were presented at the Salone del Mobile in 2008. His design works are exhibited in the permanent collection of MOMA in New York and in other museums in America and Europe.

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