Andrea Branzi

A principal member of the Florentine Radical Architecture movement, Andrea Branzi skillfully unites the industrial and natural world in his minimalist, poetic designs. After graduating from the Florence School of Architecture in 1966, Branzi founded the Archizoom Associati design firm with three colleagues. Their focus was designing avant-garde objects for a progressing urban life. When Branzi established his own studio in 1982, he altered his approach, creating “hybrid objects” produced by a combination of technological and formal processes. 

“Hybrid objects” debuted in Branzi’s Domestic Animals series. Central to each object was the incorporation of a natural component—a formal, untouched material which would contrast the technological adjustments made to other contributing materials. Most often, pairings included branches or cut trunks of birch wood and lacquered wood. Branzi believes objects are living presences in the human environment. He uses unprocessed organic material to translate this metaphor in his designs. 

Branzi’s fascination with urbanization juxtaposed with the natural world is evident in the present lot. Aluminum shelves frame birch wood trees as if containing the trunks from further growth. The metal assumes the role of synthetic branches, and yet their dramatic material qualities reveal a man-made intervention. The present lot is a unique example, as Branzi notes the organic elements ensure his designs are “naturally diversified.”