He was a major figure in the Rationalist Movement, excelling in architectural, furniture, industrial and museum design. After receiving a degree in architecture from the Politecnico di Milano in 1929, he worked with the Ponti and Lancia design studios. His work for the magazine Casabella also played a key part in his development, marking his conversion to the Rationalist Movement and his becoming its spokesman on the Italian cultural scene. When he set up his own practice in Milan in 1931, he took on the challenge of workers’ housing and continued in this vein after the war, thanks to the opportunities offered by the reconstruction projects he worked on with Franca Helg from 1952. In all his work, from home furnishings to industrial and museum design projects, Franco Albini always instilled a logical consistency, an extreme purity of expression and exceptional ethical and historical integrity.

Established in 1927, Cassina has been designing the future for over eighty years. During the 50’s the company, founded in Meda (Milan) by Cesare and Umberto Cassina, launched industrial design in Italy. Taking a completely new approach, which saw a shift from handcraftsmanship to serial production, the company began to work side by side with designers. Since then, Cassina has shown a striking inclination for research and the ability to spark multi-participant dialogues between the most talented designers of both the 20th and 21st centuries – Gio Ponti, Vico Magistretti, Mario Bellini, Philippe Starck & Piero Lissoni to name but a few - with quite diverse sensibilities, styles and creative spirits. Cassina holds the worldwide production rights for the iconic Le Corbusier range of furniture designs.