Carlo Bartoli Biography
Carlo Bartoli, born in 1931, is part of the young generation at the end of the war. Learning from the masters of Italian architecture and design of that tumultuous period, such as his designer friend Luciano Baldessari and Marcello Nizzoli, he graduated in architecture in Milan, where he opened his own studio in 1960. Bartoli deals with architecture and interiors, but during one of the crises in the construction industry, he concentrated on furniture design. Initially working on objects that he himself needs, he develops his working method, which consists in identifying limits and translating simplicity into project culture. The collaboration with companies destined to become references in the field of design leads to the creation of important products, such as the Gaia armchair for Arflex, which is exhibited in the permanent collection of the MOMA in New York and in the design collection of the Milan Triennale, and the chair 4875 for Kartell, the first in the world to be made entirely of polypropylene, exhibited in the design collection of the Center Pompidou in Paris. Carlo Bartoli has been the designer of numerous pieces for Italian and foreign companies, and has exhibited his work at the Milan Triennale, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Stadt Museum in Cologne, in New York, Prague, Hong Kong, Athens and Buenos Aires. He teaches at the Polytechnic of Milan and at the ISIA in Florence and Rome. His projects, based on essentiality and the search for balance, have been awarded with the XXI Compasso d'Oro ADI and the Materialica Design Award (Uno chair designed by Bartoli Design with Fauciglietti Engineering for Segis), the ID Design Distinction Award, the Apex Product Design Award, the Red Dot - Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen and the IF Award for Good Industrial Design (Breeze armchair for Segis), the IF Award (Tube sofa for Rossi di Albizzate), the 2010 Good Design Award (Sol table for Bonaldo). Added to these important awards is the ADI Compasso d'Oro for Lifetime Achievement 2016. The profound understanding of the context and the creative use of technologies to obtain quality products have led Bartoli to create objects that have achieved notable success on the market. The taste for precision and knowledge of technology have pushed Bartoli to also design numerous small products, such as handles and mechanisms, in which attention to detail is fundamental. In 2007 he founded the associated studio Bartoli Design together with his children Anna and Paolo Bartoli, thus continuing the experience of design and project culture inaugurated by Carlo in the 1960s.
