BERLUTI OBJECTS
Developed together with a select group of highly respected European makers, including Werkstätte Carl Auböck, Bottega Ghianda, San Lorenzo Silversmiths and Simon Hasan, commissioning Berluti editions of iconic historic designs by Gae Aulenti, Afra and Tobia Scarpa, Carl Auböck II and III and new work by Simon Hasan, dating from every decade between the 1950’s and 2000’s, representing over 7 decades of design from 1950 to 2020 and more than 400 years of collective know-how; the combined savoir faire of Berluti in leather with that of the silversmith, carpenter, metalworker and designer/maker.
Curation and development by Vinson&Co
Carl Auböck
Werkstätte Carl Auböck is a Vienna based brass workshop founded in the late 19th century, which developed in the 1920s under Carl Auböck II who was one of the first students at the Bauhaus in Weimar.
The Berluti Objects collection includes a magazine rack and a letter opener from 1950 made in cast brass hand finished in Berluti’s emblematic Venezia calf leather and a set of curved rectangular lidded boxes in Venezia calf leather, hand- stitched and fully-lined, designed by Carl Auböck II in 1951. And by his son, Carl Auböck III, a desk blotter, pencil pot, pen holder, stationary holder and wastepaper bin in Venezia calf leather, hand-stitched and fully-lined all 1960’s.
Bottega Ghianda
Pierluigi Ghianda is one of the most celebrated Italian woodworkers of the 20th century, the man to whom top Italian architects such as Gio Ponti, Gae Aulenti, Angelo Mangiarotti, Vico Magistretti and Ettore Sottsass turned to produce bespoke accessories and furniture, today these pieces form the Bottega Ghianda collection.
A set of trays built entirely by hand, in maple and ebony, made unique by their solid angled joints and lined in Venezia calf leather are by Gae Aulenti from 1979. Also by the Italian architect, a set of photo frames, created in 1986 in the Bottega Ghianda workshops, for the Musée d’Orsay in Paris designed by the Italian architect. Handmade and hand polished in maple and ebony with 45° dovetail joints and finished in Venezia calf leather using delicate leather intarsia work enhanced by the hand application of patina.
San Lorenzo
San Lorenzo, since its foundation in 1970 by Ciro Cacchione, has distinguished itself for collaborating with internationally famous designers and architects such as Franco Albini and Franca Helg, Antonio Piva, Afra and Tobia Scarpa, and Lella and Massimo Vignelli, creating masterpieces of contemporary silver.
The rectangular and square Boxes, by Afra & Tobia Scarpa, 1972 have perfect proportions according to the golden section cannon. Sterling silver is cut and folded and finished with copper sections and rivets and lined in Venezia leather. Also by Afra & Tobia Scarpa, from 1996 a set of three Cartoccio Bowls, born as a spontaneous, simple and evocative gesture, as a sheet of paper imprinted in the hand that illustrates perfectly the properties of pure silver (999/°°°), now with the addition of fine supple Venezia calf leather on the outside.
Simon Hasan
A graduate of London’s Royal College of art, Simon Hasan is a designer/maker specialising in leather, working in Cuir Bouilli, a medieval technique of boiling raw leather to form his organic and slightly abstract shapes.
A set of 5 vases by Simon Hasan, made using a 15th Century crafts technique in which vegetable tanned leather is heated in water on wooden moulds. As a designer maker, Hasan is unique, and has been developing this technique since 2008. The seam is secured with stainless steel hardware and the forms are sealed inside with resin, before being finished in the Berluti atelier with emblematic hand applied patina.
Photography: Jonas Marguet