Cooper Hewitt says...
Milan-based Mario Bellini is a versatile designer, architect, urban planner, and designer, whose clients include Italian automakers and an international roster of furniture, lighting, and office equipment producers such as B&B Italia, Vitra, Cassina, Heller, Brionvega, Artemide, Yamaha, and Olivetti. Bellini was editor of the architecture and design magazine Domus from 1986 to 1991. He has taught architecture and design and has been awarded a number of international architecture and design prizes, including eight Compasso d’Oro awards.
Bellini studied architecture and graduated from the Politechnico di Milano in 1959, and opened his own architectural practice in the early 1960s. He began designing furniture and products in 1963 and became the chief design consultant for the Italian office machinery company, Olivetti. His early work used organic forms to reference the natural world. In the 1970s, he organized workshops exploring the complex relationship between humans and man-made objects and environments, although by that time he had begun to create more rectangular and faceted designs.
