Italian Rationalist Three-Door Wardrobe
Italy, circa 1930
Black and yellow veneered wood, with anticorodal aluminium-alloy handles and fittings.
This monumental three-door wardrobe is a striking expression of Italian Rationalist design at the beginning of the 1930s. Its rigorously rectilinear form is reduced to a series of broad, uninterrupted planes, with three warm yellow-ochre doors set in sharp contrast against the black architectural framework. Slender anticorodal handles provide the only external ornament, reinforcing the wardrobe’s functional and distinctly modern character.
The exterior conceals an organised interior incorporating hanging compartments, shelves and a series of orange-fronted drawers. This emphasis on order, economy of form and practical use reflects the progressive approach to domestic furnishing promoted by Italy’s leading modernist architects and designers during the interwar period.
The wardrobe’s bold colour contrasts, industrial metal fittings and rejection of historical decoration closely relate it to furniture associated with Luigi Figini and Gino Pollini and to the interiors presented at Milan’s II Mostra Autunnale dell’Ambiente Moderno in 1932.
Dimensions:
H 170 W 207 D 55 cm
Provenance:
Private collection, Milan.
Condition:
In good functional condition, wear consistent with age and use and one light mark to the front (see photo).
Comparative literature:
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L’arte nella casa, special issue of Domus devoted to modern furniture in Italy, Christmas 1929, p. 103.
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II Mostra Autunnale dell’Ambiente Moderno, Galleria Il Milione, Milan, 1932, exhibition booklet.
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“Una mostra a Milano,” Casabella, no. 57, September 1932, pp. 25–29.
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Vittorio Gregotti and Giovanni Marzari, eds., Luigi Figini, Gino Pollini: Opera Completa, Electa, Milan, 2002, p. 267.
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Vittorio Savi, ed., Luigi Figini e Gino Pollini Architetti, Electa, Milan, 1980, p. 24.
