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strikingly individual
In Tre 3, a piece of leather has been placed in the high rear leg which gently descends to smoothly and seamlessly give shape to the back and seat. This is a rereading of a kind of chair previously created by leading figures of Nordic design. The “3T” chair took Angelo Mangiarotti closer to the work of another great 20th-century maestro, Carlo Scarpa, who influenced all those designers who believed attention to detail was something to be explored and honored.
Mangiarotti’s links to Switzerland, hark back to the 2nd World War. Given his political background, in 1943, just 22 years old and just a few exams into his architectural studies at the Milan Polytechnic, he crossed the Swiss border seeking asylum from the Mussolini regime.
While in Switzerland, Mangiarotti meets Ernesto Nathan Rogers from BBPR, one of the first Italian architectural collectives placing teamwork above individuals. Through Rogers, he is introduced to Max Bill, who, in turn, invites him to teach at the IIT. In Chicago Mangiarotti has contacts with Mies van der Rohe and Konrad Wachsmann, one of the fathers of prefabrication and mass production of architectural components. Both encounters had a huge influence on Angelo Mangiarotti’s work in the years to come.
He is offered to stay and teach abroad, yet he comes back to Milan and teams up with Bruno Morassutti. All of a sudden the pieces fall in place and in the same year of the renovation Club 44, two other architectural masterpieces see the light: the Mater Misericordiae Church in Baranzate and the Manzoni Apartment in Milan.
Chair with three rectangular-sectioned legs, two front legs at the sides and a central leg at the rear, joined together by a solid T-shaped cross structure, which is as stable as a traditional chair with four legs.
