Bardi’s Bowl Chair

Bardi’s Bowl Chair

Learn more Arper’s limited edition of Lina Bo Bardi’s Bowl Chair.

Architecture, design, scenography, illustration, publishing: these varied aspects of Lina Bo Bardi’s work came together in her desire to be an active participant in Brazil’s modernization process.

The design for Bardi’s Bowl Chair comes from the first phase of Lina’s career in Brazil, when she still believed it was possible to interfere with the course of rapid industrialization in the 1950s. Later she would become very critical of furniture design, preferring handcrafted pieces, conceived and made individually for each project.

Lina designed Bardi’s Bowl in 1951, when her interior and furniture design partnership with Giancarlo Palanti had come to an end. She went on to complete her residence in São Paulo, the Glass House. It was not until 1953 that the design began to receive international attention: the American magazine Interiors published an article entitled ‘Bowls, Baskets and Bags’, comparing the design to the chairs of Eero Saarinen, Irena Schawinsky and Roberto Mango.

From 1958, when Lina moved to the city of Salvador, she developed her work on the interaction between popular and modern culture, initiating a design approach that reach its fullest potential in the 1980s, with the SESC Pompéia project being the most outstanding example.

On Lina’s death in 1992, the copyright for her designs was transferred to the Instituto Lina Bo and P.M. Bardi, who have now granted Arper permission to produce a new series of Bardi’s Bowl. The change in techniques since Lina’s time has necessitated an interpretative approach by Arper, the challenge being to remain faithful to the original design while adapting to the contemporary conditions of industrial production. The care and precision required to do this might be compared to the qualities applied by Lina in her approach to the renovation of historic buildings.

Renato Anelli
Architect and Professor of the University of São Paulo