Andrea Branzi by Toyo Ito: Its Continuous Present

Andrea Branzi. Italian architect and designer was born in Florence in 1938, and in 1966, he founded, together with Gilberto Corretti, Paolo Deganello, and Massimo Morozzi, the the influential Archizoom Associati studio (which would dissolve in 1974), an experimental group known for its innovative projects that, together with the contemporary group Superstudio, launched internationally to the world the Italian avant-garde in the 1960s and 1970s, particularly the experimental movement known as radical architecture.

Throughout a six-decade career, he created numerous avant-garde proposals, including the visionary No-Stop-City (1969), an urban utopia, an invention proposed as a surreal city project, which was proposed as a continuous residential structure, without empty spaces, in the line of proposals such as those of Yona Friedman, or the Japanese of metabolism.

His design proposals include furniture created with the intention of challenging the conventions of the time, such as the Superonda sofa (1967), (and produced by Poltronova), the Mies chair (1968) or the Safari modular sofa (1968), pieces that were created with the intention of challenging conventional notions about how we use furniture. His objects have been produced by several prestigious brands, including Alessi and Cassina...

In 2022, Branzi received the Italian Architecture Prize for lifetime achievement, highlighting different awards throughout his career, including three Compasso d'Oro in 1979, 1987, and 1995. His objects have been produced by several prestigious brands, including Alessi and Cassina. He was also one of the founders of Domus Academy, a private design school that he ran for years, and a full professor at the Milan Polytechnic. He passed away on October 9, 2023, at the age of 84.