Renzo Mongiardino

Renzo Mongiardino (1916-1998) had a double soul: interior designer and set designer. Born in Genoa, he completed his studies in architecture at the Polytechnic of Miano under Gio Ponti and then began his career as an interior designer in the 1950s. Mongiardino's work is out of time: his interiors eschew modernity and minimalism and refer to the styles of the past, in a luxury with almost fairy-tale tones that has won over a rich international clientele made up of families such as the Agnellis, the Moratti, the Rothschilds, the Thyssens or the Onassis. Mongiardino's was a "chamber architecture" (this is the title of one of his manuals published by Rizzoli and still very popular today) of undoubtedly traditionalist and decorative taste, but nevertheless very attentive to the balance and harmony of spaces. His work as a set designer also began at the end of the 1950s and took place mainly in the theatre, where he particularly established a fruitful collaboration with Franco Zeffielli. For Zeffirelli he was also the set designer of several film productions, two of which earned him an Oscar nomination for set design (1968, 1974). In his projects he often used refined woven wicker furnishings and he had the opportunity to collaborate several times with the Bonacina family, specialists in the sector, so much so that today the Bonacina 1889 brand can boast a vast selection of products designed by him in its catalogue.