Rodolfo Bonetto

Rodolfo Bonetto (1929-1991) was one of the great protagonists of the fruitful season of post-war Italian design. Winner of the Compasso d'Oro eight times (1964, 1967, 1970, twice in 1979, 1984 and 1991, the latter a career recognition awarded to him post mortem), Bonetto was also very active at an associative and popular level: he held numerous roles for ADI (Industrial Design Association), including that of president between 1971 and 1973, led the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design from 1981 to 1983, taught in the 1960s at the Ulm School, invited directly by its director Tomas Maldonado. However, his personal training was self-taught, so much so that he was affectionately defined by Vittorio Gregotti as a "cultured worker": in his youth Bonetto had in fact been an appreciated jazz musician and had approached design thanks to his paternal uncle Felice Bonetto, a famous racing driver, who prompted him to join Pininfarina (where he worked from 1951 to 1957, when he then decided to start his own business). In addition to the field of car design, Rodolfo Bonetto oversaw projects for household appliances, machine tools, electronics and other fields in which his great attention to the technical aspects was highly valued. His collaboration with Olivetti was particularly fruitful. In the furniture sector, his most beautiful creations are now published by B-Line, but in his time he also had the opportunity to work with Driade, Flexform, iGuzzini, Olivari and other brands. After his death, his design studio was led by his son Marco.