In The Icons Anthology Exhibition you can see B&B Italia’s famous pieces in the flesh and even book a private guided tour.
Since 1966, B&B Italia has built a 55-year history of producing contemporary furniture by industrializing its manufacturing process. While Italy’s 1950’s furniture industry was dependent on handmade production, B&B Italia’s founder Piero Ambrosio Busnelli saw the opportunity in machine-produced furniture.
With the new technique that utilizes cold polyurethane foam, irregular shapes and patterns became possible to create. Through the Research and Development Center, which the brand describes as their “mind and heart,” B&B Italia shares the innovative process with renowned designers globally.
The Icons
To experience B&B Italia’s collaborations with the likes of Piero Lissoni, Patricia Urquiola, Mario Bellini, Antonio Citterio, and Naoto Fukasawa, they organized The Icons Anthology Exhibition.
The exhibit, a first of its kind for B&B Italia Manila, offers an immersive setting for clients and design enthusiasts. Separated by designers, the showrooms include Le Bambole (Bellini), Mart (Citterio), Serie Up (Pesce), and Moon System (Zaha Hadid), to name a few.
The stories behind
For those of us into interior design, there are B&B Italia pieces that are highly recognizable due to their atypical aesthetic. However, every piece has a story behind it. For example, Gaetano Pesce’s chair-and-ottoman piece, also known as the “mama chair,” originally signified women bound into a ball and chain.
Pesce meant to convey that women didn’t have freedom when he designed it 52 years ago. But now times have changed; B&B Italia refers to the set as the “mama” (the armchair) and “the baby” (the ottoman). Instead of the string attaching the two pieces symbolizing restriction, it now represents an umbilical cord that connects a mother and newborn child.
“The Moon System” by Iraqi-British designer and architect Zaha Hadid is another notable work you can see in person. Hadid, known as “the Queen of the Curve,” is celebrated due to her futuristic buildings such as Azerbaijan’s Heydar Aliyev Center and China’s Guangzhou Opera House.
A boomerang inspires her two-piece set, and its interesting shape is achieved through B&B Italia’s hard polyurethane foam technology. The process uses metal molds according to the furniture piece’s shape, and it’s why some items can have removable covers for more customizability because each item is made to the “exact millimeter.”
The B&B Italia Manila Icons Anthology Exhibition is running from October to the end of December 2021. Schedule your visit by calling 8705 9999.
For more details, you can find B&B Italia Manila on Facebook and Instagram @bebitaliamanila or visit their website at www.bebitaliamanila.com.
Banner photo courtesy of B&B Italia Manila.
