Bel meetings

Designers
& architects

Piero Lissoni

He is an architect, designer, and artistic director, and believes that specialization harms design… it deserves an intellectual, humanist, and holistic approach, as ensured for years by the Politecnico di Milano. He graduated in architecture from this school in 1985.

Lissoni Associati, founded in 1987, expanded in 1996 to include a visual communication agency. It demonstrates transdisciplinary expertise: advertising, packaging, artistic design, scenography, and architecture, including the Conservatorium Hotel in Amsterdam, and interior design for villas, restaurants, yachts, stores, and showrooms.

For Lissoni, design is a combinatory and interactive process requiring extensive knowledge across multiple fields. In industrial design, he creates furniture and accessories for top manufacturers, including Cassina, Fritz Hansen, Flos, Knoll, Cappellini, Living Divani, and since 2017, B&B Italia with the Sake sofa. Inspired by masters like Ettore Sottsass and Achille Castiglioni, as well as Nordic designers Arne Jacobsen and Poul Kjærholm, his work is grounded in long-considered foresight.

His expertise focuses on essentials through a logistical approach shaping spatial flows. Service, usage, and the human factor complete every theoretical design.

He applies modularity to sofas and storage units produced by Porro. When arranging decorative ensembles, he aims to create interplay, an alchemy between elements from different styles and continents. He is uncomfortable with the notion of luxury or ostentation; beauty is meant to be perceived, not displayed.

The technical challenge of his asymmetrical 196 table for Cassina demonstrates that his architectural rigor does not exclude a certain nonconformity.

A devotee of minimalism, “ideal simplicity,” and the minimalist elegance of his award-winning creations (Good Design Award and Compasso d’Oro), he places beauty at the center of all projects—in the classical sense, as a universal concept that enhances human life.

Link: Piero Lissoni’s house – video

The Bouroullec Brothers