La Dolce Vita
B&B Italia celebrates 60 years of storied design influence.
Gaetano Pesce’s Up Series armchair is a metaphor for the female figure: endowed with a womb, yet is a prisoner.
There are brands that follow trends and brands that set them. B&B Italia has spent the past 60 years defining modern design, and creating award-winning forms with internationally renowned designers, architects, and creatives.
To mark this auspicious anniversary, and the brand’s return to Salone del Mobile, Piero Gandini, CEO of B&B Italia Group and executive chairman of Flos B&B Italia Group, commissioned Nova Express to produce a special issue of their magazine, as well as an exhibit tracing 60 years of great design during the Milan fair. Both the exhibit and the magazine, titled Before & Beyond, illustrate perspective on a complex and multifaceted history of products, experiments, projects, marketing, and stories.
From Oliviero Toscani’s bold advertisements for Mario Bellini’s Le Bambole to the new cinematic campaign by Carina Frey and Stefanie Barth, the magazine and the exhibition travels through different eras, combining visions and archival materials in a narrative that ultimately returns to a simple, yet difficult to implement, principle: creating beautiful and enduring design objects in collaboration with some of the most brilliant minds of yesterday and today.
Tufty-Time, by Patricia Urquiola, has become the choice of designers everywhere who want a dramatic statement piece that earns top marks in comfort and style.
Left: The Alanda coffee table, originally designed by Pablo Piva in the 1980s, was reissued in 2018 in tribute to the great architect who passed away in 2017.
Right: In 1979, Antonio Citterio and Paolo Nava designed the iconic Diesis sofa.
Left to right: Architect Vico Magistretti with graphic designer and artist Enrico Trabacchi, designer of B&B Italia’s brand identity, and the brand’s founder, Piero Ambrogio Busnelli.
This year, B&B Italia and Maxalto collaborated with Maxime D’Angeac, architect and artistic director of Orient Express, to design furnishings for the interiors of the luxury, three-masted sailing yacht, Orient Express Corinthian. The Corinthian is equipped with every comfort for sailing between the Mediterranean and the Adriatic until October, before spending the winter in the Caribbean. The private dining room is a study in glamour, perfect for hosting formal dinners.
Right: A quiet corner of the game room on the Corinthian.
The Corinthian boasts a full spa, with an entry befitting an Italian doge.
At Salone del Mobile 2026, B&B Italia’s Before & Beyond exhibit highlighted the storied company’s history.
The pool lounge area on the Orient Express Corinthian is fitted with comfortable furnishings from both B&B Italia and Maxalto.
The three-masted sailing yacht, Corinthian, is 220 meters long and equipped with every comfort.