Osvaldo Borsani

Osvaldo enjoyed an immensely productive career that ran from the late 1920s, with furniture design straddling the age of Art Déco and the first manifestations of Rationalism in Italy (when he began to take over the reins at the family business, ABV – “Arredamenti Borsani di Varedo”), to the period, from the mid-1950s through to the early ’80s, in which the highly industrial designs of the products and systems he developed for his own Tecno furniture company earned international acclaim.
For those sixty years, Osvaldo cut a lone and unconventional path that proved revolutionary in the history of Italy’s world-famous design scene. Giampiero Bosoni is an architect and full professor of History of Design and Interior
Architecture at the Politecnico di Milano’s School of Design. He has worked with Figini and Pollini, Vittorio Gregotti and Enzo Mari, with whom he developed an interest in the theory and history of architecture and design.
In 2008, he was commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art in New York to compile a history of Italian design, starting with the museum’s own collection. He has written and edited numerous books on design and interiors, which have been translated into several languages. He has spoken at various conferences and cultural institutions, and has lectured on post-graduate courses at universities and schools in Italy and overseas.