For International Women's Day, we celebrate the iconic furniture of ten visionary designers – Anna Castelli Ferrieri, Cini Boeri, Eileen Gray, Patricia Urquiola, Paola Navone, Bernardt & Vella, Front, Zaha Hadid, Chiara Andreatti and Monica Armani. They are designers who have pushed the boundaries of furniture with their big thinking, award-winning ideas, and in the process shaped some of our most loved pieces of design.
One of the first women to graduate in architecture and industrial design at Milan's Polytechnic University in 1943 (Cini Boeri was another), Milanese designer Anna Castelli Ferrieri became an editor of Casabella magazine, notable for its focus on radical, modern design, ran an architecture studio in Milan designing influential projects including Kartell’s signature fire-engine red Milan headquarters, technical offices for Alfa Romeo in Arese and the Castek headquarters in Milan, and in 1949 cofounded Kartell with husband Giulio Castelli that by the 1960s was one of the most prestigious design manufacturers in the world.
Anna Castelli Ferrieri would spend two years in the studio of neo-rationalist architect Franco Albini and was introduced to the Bauhaus school of thinking based on simplicity and functionality. That experience would shape Kartell’s foundations and identity, its strong geometric shapes, bold colour and highly polished finishes that transformed plastic at a time when the material was associated with industry, not the home.
'She later became the company’s design director, and was instrumental in recruiting a range of innovative designers, including Joe Colombo and the Castiglioni brothers, many of her pieces are still in production, including the popular Componibili Modular Storage System. First shown at the Salone del Mobile in Milan in 1967, it was one of the first products made using the progressive technology of injection-molded ABS plastic, and was designed with an interlocking shape that allowed multiple components to stack.'
Jane Hall, author, Woman Made: Great Women Designers
Under the art direction of Castelli Ferrieri, Kartell would produce remarkable furniture by Pier and Achille Castiglioni, Gae Aulenti, Ettore Sottsass, Franco Albini and Joe Colombo, but it was the Componibili modular storage system designed by Castelli Ferrieri in 1967 that fully embraced the experimental exuberance and optimism of the time. Today, it is both her most recognisable legacy and an icon of the Kartell collection that most recently has been reimagined in Bioplastic as part of the ‘Kartell loves the planet’ launch into circular materials.
Kartell is available exclusively in South East Asia from Space – Singapore and Malaysia, and Space – Australia.
