Lecture by Designer Martino Zanotta September 22, 2010

The California College of the Arts Furniture Program presents an evening with Martino Zanotta, president and CEO of Zanotta SpA. This industrial design firm is based in Milan and was founded by Zanotta's father in 1954. It is devoted to "the Italian way of living design," with a dual focus on form and technology. It regularly brings in internationally famed architects and designers to create its products, which are distributed in more than 60 countries.

The collections include armchairs, sofas, storage units, bookcases, chairs, tables, coffee tables, and more, created using diverse manufacturing technologies. In 1989 the Zanotta Edizioni collection was introduced, featuring furnishing objects that are close to applied art and largely handmade. Harking back to the most significant facets of Italy's artistic craft tradition, they revive and reinvent older techniques such as mosaic, inlay, and painted decorations.

The firm's work has won numerous awards over the decades and is represented in the collections of many major museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Metropolitan Museum, New York; Centre George Pompidou, Paris; the London Design Museum; the Berlin Arts and Crafts Museum; Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, Germany; and the Israel Museum, Jerusalem.