Enrico Baleri

Enrico Baleri (1942-) is an entrepreneur in the furniture sector, protagonist of successful initiatives that have contributed to the international success of Italian design. Born in Albino into a family of furniture makers, during his university studies in Milan he had the opportunity to meet the dynamic entrepreneur Dino Gavina who convinced him to open a store in 1965 focused on avant-garde design furniture collections, Baleri Design in Bergamo, where he would work together with his wife Marilisa Decimo. A few years later, in 1972, Enrico Baleri opened the experimental design center Pluri, through which he would deal with the design of some public spaces but also with innovative furniture to be produced for Knoll International (a large international brand that in the meantime had purchased the Gavina factories, with which Baleri maintained close relations). In the same period Baleri came into contact with the architect and designer Giandomenico Belotti, designer of the Baleri family’s home-showroom in Albino – which would later become one of the most popular multi-brand showrooms in Italy, called Abitare Baleri, under the guidance of Ferdi Baleri, Enrico’s older brother – and fell in love with a chair he had designed for an old project. This chair, revisited and redesigned, would be at the heart of the production of a new company founded in 1979 by Baleri, in partnership with Belotti himself and the brothers Francesco and Carlo Forcolini: Alias, a brand whose rationalist and hi-tech style would soon prove to be destined to achieve great success. In the early years of business, Enrico Baleri served as the company’s artistic director and in this role he also had the great intuition of inviting the star architect Mario Botta to create his first furniture projects. Having left Alias in 1983 due to disagreements with his partners, the following year Baleri and his wife founded the company for which he will be remembered, Baleri Italia, destined to play a key role in the internationalization process of Italian design thanks to collaborations with a young Philippe Starck and other important designers from all over the world. Baleri will have an all-encompassing role in this new company, covering both the role of art director and that of production director and also personally designing several products. This adventure will last until 2004, the year of the sale of Baleri Italia to the designer Nino Cerruti; from that moment on Baleri will dedicate himself entirely to the activity of his Research Center in the field of communication, design and graphics and will carve out a role for himself as a “critical conscience” of Italian design through numerous public interventions and a lively and pioneering presence on the web.