The classics by B&B Italia

Since the 1960s, B&B Italia has led a trailblazing mission to open up new furniture typologies by revolutionising craft through innovation. Now after more than 50 years working with Mario Bellini to Patricia Urquiola, Antonio Citterio and Jean-Marie Massaud, the furniture powerhouse has become synonymous with award-winning classics that connect with us way beyond their function.

The early days of B&B Italia began in 1966 when Italian manufacturers were in the midst of inventing a brand new industry – design. “In his life, my father took any challenge,” remarks former chairman Giorgio Busnelli in 2016 at the company’s 50th birthday celebrations. It's a remark that reveals the inventiveness of the late Piero Ambrogio Busnelli and his trailblazing belief in design and innovation. That push to revolutionise craft saw Busnelli explore ideas in unexpected places. A chance encounter with a rubber duck manufacturer in the UK, for example, became the catalyst for a new way to make sofas and underlines the furniture group’s open approach to collaboration.

Design leaps at B&B Italia involved complex production processes that required new materials and the fabrication of high-tech manufacturing equipment. In 1970 they were working with Mario Bellini on ideas for a sofa pared way back to just a simple cushion. Le Bambole would develop into a free-form sofa with an internal structure of elastic fabric membrane wrapped in upholstery and described by Bellini as a sofa "built from fabric", it was an icon of the 70s that won the Compasso d’Oro in 1979 and represented what B&B Italia’s 1975 advertising campaign called "the technological coups”.

 Building on the technological advances developed in the 60s, the Bend sofa by Patricia Urquiola involved complex 3D modelling to create the form which Urquiola describes as

Building on the technological advances developed in the 60s, the Bend sofa by Patricia Urquiola involved complex 3D modelling to create the form which Urquiola describes as "almost manually moulded... with gestures not unlike those of a sculptor". Photo c/o B&B Italia.

Pushing the boundaries of science, technology and design, B&B Italia opened up new furniture typologies at a time when fashion, film and furniture began collaborating, and would gain huge popularity by connecting to the masses through TV, newspapers and magazines. The advertising campaign that launched Le Bambole would involve the provocative genius of photographer Oliviero Toscani (who later launched the controversial United Colors of Benetton campaigns) and the icon of the moment – jeans – featuring artist Andy Warhol’s muse, the model Donna Jordan. The campaign’s ability to tap into the zeitgeist of the 60s and 70s won B&B Italia attention and sales and established Le Bambole as a design classic.

B&B Italia has always understood the impact of good design and its ability to connect with people beyond functionality. Since the 60s, collaborations with designers including Mario Bellini and Paolo Piva, to more recent partnerships with Patricia Urquiola, Antonio Citterio and Jean-Marie Massaud, have produced an output of design classics that remain connected by the spirit of craft and innovation. Following are eight of the best from the B&B Italia collection.

“A seat with a primary, monolithic and almost manually moulded shape, as though it had been created from a ductile material with gestures not unlike those of a sculptor.”

Patricia Urquiola, on the Bend sofa.

The Bend sofa designed by Patricia Urquola. Photo c/o B&B Italia.

The Bend sofa designed by Patricia Urquola. Photo c/o B&B Italia.

The Husk armchair by Patricia Urquiola. Photo c/o B&B Italia.

The Husk armchair by Patricia Urquiola. Photo c/o B&B Italia.

The Tufty-Time sofa system designed by Patricia Urquiola. Photos c/o B&B Italia.

The Tufty-Time sofa system designed by Patricia Urquiola. Photos c/o B&B Italia.

The Seven table designed by Jean-Marie Massaud for B&B Italia. Photo c/o B&B Italia.

The Seven table designed by Jean-Marie Massaud for B&B Italia. Photo c/o B&B Italia.

The all leather Doyl designed by Antonio Citterio. Photo c/o B&B Italia.

The all leather Doyl designed by Antonio Citterio. Photo c/o B&B Italia.

Winner of a coveted Compasso d'Oro Award, Le Bambole was a breakthrough moment for B&B Italia when it was launched in 1972 after two years of research and development. Photo c/o B&B Italia.

Winner of a coveted Compasso d'Oro Award, Le Bambole was a breakthrough moment for B&B Italia when it was launched in 1972 after two years of research and development. Photo c/o B&B Italia.

The Frank side table designed by Antonio Citterio. Photo c/o B&B Italia.

The Frank side table designed by Antonio Citterio. Photo c/o B&B Italia.

The Alanda '18 by Paolo Piva is a classic from 1980 re-released by B&B Italia in 2018. Photo c/o B&B Italia.

The Alanda '18 by Paolo Piva is a classic from 1980 re-released by B&B Italia in 2018. Photo c/o B&B Italia.

“I wanted to revisit capitonnè and Chesterfield types of sofas, while paying special attention to the new interpretations made in the 1960s and 70s, which I have great regard for.”

Patricia Urquiola, on the Tufty-Time sofa.

The Tufty-Too by Patricia Urquiola for B&B Italia. Photo c/o B&B Italia.

The Tufty-Too by Patricia Urquiola for B&B Italia. Photo c/o B&B Italia.

Bend sofa, Husk and Tufty-Time by Patricia Urquiola

Describing Bend as a modular sofa that looks like it was sculpted by an artist, B&B Italia’s development of the design with Urquiola focused on a study of 3D models and complex digital research. “A seat with a primary, monolithic and almost manually moulded shape, as though it had been created from a ductile material with gestures not unlike those of a sculptor,” remarked Urquiola whose aim was to express the idea of continual movement.

“I wanted to revisit the capitonnè and Chesterfield types of sofas, while paying special attention to the new interpretations made in the 1960s and 70s, which I have great regard for,” remarked Patricia Urquiola at the launch of Tufty-Time at the Milan Furniture Fair in 2005. This modular system starts with an ottoman as the base piece accompanied by a central, corner and terminal element, and a low or high armrest. Urquiola’s nod to furniture designs of the 1960s is revealed in its flexibility where Tufty-Time is both a social hub for conversation and a place for complete relaxation.

While the Husk armchair forms part of the Husk collection that includes the Husk bed that won Patricia Urquiola a prestigious Elle Deco International Design Award, and has been described by former B&B Italia Chairman Giorgio Busnelli, as “soft and geometric, simple and complex at the same time”. The detail in the quilting and the form of the seat are the result of intense design research with B&B Italia. In her first solo show at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2017, Urquiola describes that approach as a process where design is not enough and "where the concept, the prototyping and the applied technologies are key to connecting craft with industry".

Alanda 18' coffee table by Paolo Piva


In 1980 a collaboration between B&B Italia and Italian-Austrian designer Paolo Piva who studied under the great Carlo Scarpa, would produce the Alanda series that included the anti-Memphis pared back coffee table. Cooler than Studio 54 and beautifully simple in its execution, its glass top and sculpturally assertive wireframe would be a protagonist to the colour and exuberance of the 80s Memphis movement – and there lies its beauty. In homage to the late Paolo Piva. B&B Italia has put the Alanda coffee table into production again after more than a decade. 


Doyl chair and Frank side table by Antonio Citterio


Antonio Citterio’s long relationship with B&B Italia began in the 1970s and has produced some of the brand’s most popular pieces. Doyl is the result of research into thick padded leather which has been pushed to the extreme. Its perceived softness is defined by the chair’s shape. Leather is bent, rounded and turned but never cut, with the continuous seams on the front and back adding to the chair’s tailored detail. The small, asymmetrical Frank side table comes to life in bronzed nickel painted, coloured, or pewter painted steel. Like Citterio’s other designs for B&B Italia, Frank is part of a wider family and designed to nestle in close to the chairs and sofas in the collection.

Seven table by Jean-Marie Massaud

“When I’m working on a project, there’s always an attempt to renew the subject I’m involved in,” explains Jean-Marie Massaud whose Seven table for B&B Italia is free of the traditional round or rectilinear form. Instead, it has three uneven sides designed to seat seven. This break from tradition is also found in its finish. Seven’s appearance changes with the specification of wood or lacquer finishes, its three-branch structure revealed on the top creating a graphic decoration to contrast or to match.

Le Bambole by Mario Bellini

Designed in 1970 by Mario Bellini and winner of a coveted Compasso d’Oro award in 1979, the starting point for the project was a shopping bag, a formless structure only shaped when the bag was set on the ground and squashed. Le Bambole, said Bellini, “are not covered in fabric, instead they are built of fabric.” Two years of development inside B&B Italia’s research department led to the launch of what would become an iconic sofa with an apparent absence of structure and the combination of comfort and softness.


B&B Italia is availalbe exclusively in South East Asia from Space – Singapore and Kuala Lumpur.and Space – Australia.


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