About Gaetano and Osvaldo Borsani

Osvaldo Borsani (born 1911, Varedo, Italy–died 1985, Milano, Italy) was an Italian designer and architect, born into a family of furniture makers with along and well established artisanal tradition.

His father, Gaetano Borsani, owned his own furniture shop, the Atelier di Varedo, where the 16-year-old Osvaldo received his first training. At that time, the designer of the atelier was the architect Gino Maggioni, who brought with him influences of the early 20th century Jugendstil movement from Vienna and who instilled in the young Borsani an appreciation for the arts and crafts and furniture making. Osvaldo Borsani first studied fine arts at Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milan, graduating in 1931, and then pursued studies in architecture at Politecnico di Milano, where he graduated in 1936.

In 1933, two years before graduating as an architect, Borsani designed the Casa Minima project for the V Triennale di Milano (Milan Triennial), along with architects Cairoli and Varisco. This project earned him a silver medal for its Rationalist code and geometries, and he received positive reviews from the critic Edoardo Persico of Casabella magazine. Villa Borsani And Other Prominent Architectural Work In 1937, Osvaldo Borsani designed Villa Presenti in Forte dei Marmi, a sea town in Tuscany where the Italian aristocracy and industrial elite would build their houses, a project that displayed the same rationalistic rigor displayed in Casa Minima, but softened by the use of mediterranean finishes and materials.

Villa Borsani designed by Osvaldo Borsani. Varedo, Italy Villa Borsani. Varedo, Italy In 1943, Osvaldo designed and built his own house, the Villa Borsani, in Varedo, which, despite being conceptualized under strict Rationalist principles, incorporated objects and art of younger artists that communicate a freer approach to the human expression. The Villa Borsani project involved artists such as Adriano Spilimbergo, Fausto Melotti, Lucio Fontana (who made the ceramic fireplace and the ceramic Madonna), and Agenore Fabbri (who made the bronze statue in the staircase). To this day, Villa Borsani has been preserved with most of its original furniture and it remains with Osvaldo Borsani’s family along with the extensive archives of his work.

Osvaldo Borsani As a Successful Product and Furniture Designer After Villa Borsani, Osvaldo continued to develop many projects for the Milanese bourgeoisie, frequently with many of the same artists whom he employed for his villa. A particularly strong relationship was the one that Osvaldo developed with artist Lucio Fontana, a close friend since the time of the Accademia de Belle Arti di Brera, and whom Borsani assigned to make a large metal balcony for the Tecno company in 1956. Osvaldo Borsani’s design work, just as his larger architectural projects, which he also considered design work, very often incorporated elements created by other artists and designers such as: Roberto Crippa, Arnaldo and Giò Pomodoro, Agenore Fabbri, Fausto Melotti, Andrea Cascella, and Lucio Fontana. Of all of these collaborations, the one that Borsani forged with Lucio Fontana resulted in the creation of many of Borsani’s furnishing designs of the late 1930s and 1940s. With Fontana, Borsani integrated sculptural ceramic and bronze elements, wood and gilded stucco, and interventions on glass tabletops with decorations, to name a few design elements, to his furniture designs. In 1953, Osvaldo understood the imminent need to transform the artisan approach to furniture making into a modern industry capable of meeting a larger demand at more accessible prices. It was then that Osvaldo and his twin brother Fulgenzio founded the manufacturer Tecno, with the aim of utilizing modern manufacturing techniques that will deliver high-quality furniture to a larger international market. Initially, Tecno manufactured only Borsani’s furniture designs, and, although he continued to design furniture and objects until the early 1980s, by the late 1950s, Tecno also manufactured furniture from other designers, including Vico Magistretti, Roberto Mango, Gae Aulenti, Eugenio Gerli, Carlo de Carli, and Gio Ponti. Black P40 chair by Osvaldo Borsani for Tecno (1955) Italian design and furniture gallery Casati Gallery P40 chair by Osvaldo Borsani for Tecno (1955) Among the most successful and iconic Tecno designs are the 1954 D70, a sofa that can assume approximately 20 positions; the 1955 P40 adjustable lounge chair, described as a “machine for sitting,” which could assume 486 distinct postures; the 1954 T41 dining table; the 1961 AT 16 coat rack; the 1965 Canada chair; the 1968 Graphis office furniture system; and the 1972 P128 office chair. Along with Eugenio Gerli, Marco Fantoni, his brother Flugenzio, and his daughter Valeria, Osvaldo Borsani founded Centro Progetti Tecno (1970), a design shop focused on creating innovative products and interiors for work and school environments. Early furniture pieces by Tecno can be found in the permanent collections of the MoMA in New York, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Trienalle di Milano Museum, and the Neue Sammlung in Munich. In 2018, the Triennale di Milano organized a retrospective of Osvaldo Borsani’s work. The exhibition “Osvaldo Borsani” was co-curated by Tommaso Fantoni, Borsani’s grandson, and Norman Foster, who had worked with Borsani at Tecno–where he designed the Nomos table and furniture systems for airport and museums.