Gae Aulenti

Gae Aulenti (1927-2012) was the most important female figure in Italian architecture and design of the twentieth century. Originally from Friuli Venezia Giulia, she graduated from the Milan Polytechnic and was a member of the editorial staff of the Casabella magazine from 1955 to 1965, under the direction of the famous architect Ernesto Nathan Rogers. Her first experiences as an architect are linked to two leading names in the Italian industry: at the end of the 1960s she had the opportunity to create the Olivetti showrooms in Buenos Aires and Paris (for which she will also design one of the most famous her design products, the Pipistrello lamp, later mass-produced by Martinelli Luce) and the interiors of Gianni Agnelli's Milanese apartment, of which she will remain a friend for life. However, the architectural typology to which she most closely linked her fame is that of museums, such as the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, obtained from an old disused station, the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya in Barcelona and the New Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. Another great passion of her was the theatrical scenographies, with numerous productions on the Milan scale. As a designer she had a long collaboration with FontanaArte, of which she was also artistic director since 1979, and she has also designed successful products for brands such as Zanotta, Knoll, Artemide, Venini and Poltronova (including the furniture collection Locus Solus, now re-proposed by Exteta).