0+1 C sideboard by Franco Poli for Bernini, 2003

Designers:
Franco Poli was born in Padua in 1950. He studied art and architecture in Venice, and in 1971, he met the artist and designer Isamu Noguchi and the renowned American architect Richard Fuller at the International University of Art (U.I.A.) in Venice. In 1974, he turned his professional focus to design with his first industrial design project, a piezoelectric lighter for Kalorik, which remained in production until 2000. From 1977, he collaborated with Bernini S.p.A., becoming its artistic director in 1979 and contributing to the catalog and image until 2009. In 1986, Franco Moschini invited him to create the aerospace division of Poltrona Frau, and the following year, he designed a successful, technologically advanced bed collection for Frau. He also defined the formal aspect of the highly successful office seating collection “Forum.” In the same year, he opened a studio in Venice and was appointed as a visiting professor at U.I.A. in Florence and the Polytechnic University of Milan. He conducted numerous lectures and meetings with students until the mid-1990s. In 1989, he was invited to the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice to teach a two-year design course, which he continued until 1996. Many of his works are exhibited in the world’s most important museums and foundations, including The Denver Art Museum, the “Fonds National d’Art Contemporain” in Paris, the “Magma Museum” in Roccamonfina, the “Farnesina Design” collection in Rome, and the Triennale Museum in Milan. In 2007, he won the “DesignX Australian Design Award.” In 2005 and 2007, he received the “Good Design Award” from the Chicago Athenaeum, and in 2008, he received an Honorable Mention at the XXI Compasso D’Oro for the LOOM chair by Matteograssi.