Vico Magistretti

Early life and education Vico Magistretti was born the son of architect Pier Giulio on 6 October 1920, in Milan, Italy. Cassina, De Padova, Flou, Fritz Hansen, Kartell, and Schiffini.

According to The Guardian, "His first great success came with the world famous Carimate chair produced by the Cassina company. The chair was a bestseller for years and mixed rural simplicity (the straw of the seat) with urban sophistication. There were the smooth lines of the wooden supports and legs, the colour, the pop-art bright red frame and elements of Scandinavian design."

Affiliations and fellowships He taught at the Royal College of Art (RCA) in London for 20 years and was appointed a Royal Designer for Industry (RDI). and was an honorary member of the Royal Scottish Incorporation of Architects.

Influence and legacy Magistretti's work has been widely exhibited and is held in the collections of many museums, including the Pompidou Centre in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art and Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, and the ADI Design Museum in Milan.

The designer Jasper Morrison, a former student of Magistretti's at the Royal College of Art, remembered a conversation with Magistretti about the practice of industrial design:"We met at Linate [airport], we were getting on the plane to London, he was 75 years old, I was 35, and he told me: "We are the luckiest people in the world to do this job". That phrase echoed in me, I was already so disappointed at the beginning of my career, but he was retired and full of enthusiasm". Magistretti's wife, Paola, died in 1998. He died on September 19, 2006, and is survived by a son, Stefano, and a daughter, Susanna.

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