Architect and designer Tommaso Buzzi was born in Sondrio and graduated in Architecture at the Politecnico di Milano. In Milan, he worked in the fields of architecture, interiors, graphic design, set design, and applied arts. In 1927, he joined the association Il Labirinto, founded to “promote the spreading of modern decorative arts in the home,” to which Paolo Venini, Giò Ponti, Carla Visconi di Modrone, Emilio Lancia and Pietro Chiesa also belonged. From 1932 to 1934, he was artistic director at Venini & C., for whom he designed a very refined series of works. They were characterized by the elegant Novecento styles in lattimo and opaque turquoise glass with black detailing and clear pieces with branch-like applications. Experimenting with traditional techniques, he also designed vessels and bowls with unusual colors. His best-known series—his Alba, Laguna, and Alga—are known for their pastel tones, which were created by using several successive thin layers of glass and then a final application of gold leaf. After World War II, Buzzi concluded his experience with glass art and dedicated himself to painting.

Fulvio Bianconi was a graphic artist, caricaturist, and designer. Born in Padua, he attended the Istituto d’Arte and the Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice. He first encountered glass at age fifteen when he studied decoration with enamels under the guidance of Michele Pinto. During the late ’30s, he worked as a caricaturist, graphic artist, and illustrator for various publishing houses such as Mondadori, Rizzoli, Garzanti, and others. After World War II, he came to Murano to study glass techniques and met Paolo Venini. A productive relationship ensued as he began a collaboration with Venini in 1947 that lasted through the entire decade of the ’50s. One of his most characteristic works is the long series of stylized figurines which Bianconi designed at the end of the ’40s, taking his inspiration from the Italian Commedia dell’Arte. His pezzati vessels proved extraordinary due to their richness in color, as were the fazzoletti, presented in several different vitreous textures, which he created with Venini himself. He obtained widespread acclaim for the a Macchie and Fasce orrizontali series, in which Bianconi revealed a marked painterly vocation. In the ’50s, he worked with other workshops such as the Vetreria Cenedese, designing vessels with applications and other pieces with cased decorations. From 1958 to 1961, he designed glass pieces for I.V.R. Mazzega. In 1963, he designed for the Vetreria Vistosi. And in 1967, he began working again with Venini, creating vessels with unusual shapes such as the Informale (1968). After another contact with Venini in 1989, he designed for De Majo from 1991 to 1992.

Born in Venice, where he lives and works, Cristiano Bianchin attended the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia, where he studied under the direction of the renowned artist Emilio Vedova and graduated with a degree in painting in 1987. Since 1984, he has exhibited at public institutions and private galleries, and his first personal show was held at the Galleria Bevilacqua La Masa in 1987. As an emerging artist, Bianchin conceives his own artistic language as a reading of experimental poetics involving the possible exchange between the sensuality of seeing and the materials used in art. His first experiments in glass date from 1992 and have been presented in numerous collective and personal exhibitions, such as the one held in 1995 at the Museo Antonio Canova (also known as the Possagno) near Treviso. Bianchin views his work with glass as having an evolutionary continuity based on the classical validity of glassworking techniques, which he confronts with the experimentation of new sculptural forms. His Nidi date from 1996: they are works conceived as mineral architectures whose surface is textured using the refined Murano glass techniques of battitura and molatura. Between 1998 and 1999, he created his Riposapesi, in which the blown glass pieces, black or vividly colored, are synthetically austere. Bianchin was selected in 1995 and 1997 as the Italian artist at the Corning Museum of Glass in New York. He participated at Aperto Vetro, the International Exhibition of Contemporary Glass in Venice, in 1996 and 1998.

The son of Benvenuto Barovier, Nicolò Barovier was both an entrepreneur and a designer. He and his brother, Ercole Barovier, joined the Vetreria Artistica Barovier & C. in 1919 as partners and glass designers. After 1926, they both became managers of the company. His familiarity with contemporary painting led him to produce extraordinary murrine vessels, which can be recognized for their elaborate geometric patterns and their unique colors. From 1932 on, he shared ownership of Vetreria Artistica Barovier & C. with his brother Ercole. He worked actively in the glass workshop through 1936.

Entrepreneur and designer Ercole Barovier was the son of Benvenuto Barovier. At age 30, he became a partner in his father’s company, the Vetreria Artistica Barovier & C. After becoming its artistic director in 1926, he took over its management with his brother. He became sole proprietor in 1936, engineering the fusion between his own glass workshop and the S.A.I.A.R. Ferro-Toso. In 1942, the new company was renamed Barovier & Toso and Ercole maintained artistic direction until 1972. His first major successes date back to the ’20s; first with the murrine vessels, then with totally original creations such as the Primavera glass collection of 1929-30. After the 30s, he dedicated himself entirely to experimenting with new multi-colored effects. In addition he perfected the colorazione a caldo senza fusione which he first used in 1935-36 to create the series Crepuscolo, Autunno Gemmato, Marina Gemmata, and Laguna Gemmata. Before World War II, he preferred soft shapes and rather thick materials, whereas in the postwar period his interest turned specifically to the field of traditional techniques, which he continued to reinterpret through his very last creations with the series A Tessere in 1972. In the ’50s, his work distinguished itself, both for the vivid quality of its colors as well as for the singularity of the materials noted for the rawness of their surfaces like the barbarici. During the ’60s and ’70s, he gave new interpretations of his a tessere glass with the Dorici, Caccia, Rotellati, and other series, which were characterized by unusual color combinations.

Maestro and designer Benvenuto Barovier first worked as a glassblower for a company called Compagnia di Venezia e Murano (C.V.M.) where he was noted for his remarkable manual skills. In 1877, he and his brother Giuseppe were invited by Antonio Salviati to collaborate in his new furnace called Salviati dott. Antonio. When Salviati retired from the business of production in 1883, Benvenuto and Giuseppe bought the company where they worked as glassblowers and designers, eventually renaming it Artisti Barovier after Salviati’s death in 1890. Among Benvenuto’s many creations are some extraordinary pieces made in mosaico glass. Apart from the significant technical quality of these objects, one can perceive the passionate experimentation carried out by the maestro from Murano, who frequently used crushed glass to decorate his pieces. He and his brother received widespread critical acclaim at several exhibitions that took place at Cà Pesaro. After the transformation of the company into Vetreria Artistica Barovier & C. (1919), Benvenuto Barovier continued to participate actively in the furnace.

Glassblower, designer, and entrepreneur Alfredo Barbini was born in Murano and began working with glass while very young. At seventeen and a half, following a brief apprenticeship, he became a glass maestro; first at the Cristalleria Franchetti and then at the S.A.I.A.R. Ferro Toso. After 1932, he worked at the Zecchin-Martinuzzi furnace with the sculptor Napoleone Martinuzzi, and began a collaboration that would last through 1936. This would prove to be fundamental to his artistic development, especially in regard to sculpture in solid massiccio glass. In 1937, he became a partner at V.A.M.S.A. and was the primo maestro of the main team of the furnace continuing his experimentation with thick glass and executing works designed by the artists Ermenegildo Ripa and Luigi Scarpa Croce. In 1946, he became partner and artistic director of the new furnace Gino Cenedese & C. With this furnace, he participated in the 1948 Biennale di Venezia, exhibiting a remarkable series of sculptures in corroso glass such as Torso and Collasso. In 1950, he opened his own furnace, Vetreria Alfredo Barbini, where he continued to experiment with the sculptural qualities of glass using materials and forms that are more and more essential. This can be seen in his series Pesci and Tulipani or in the Vetri Pesanti of the early ’60s. Assisted by his son Flavio since 1968, Barbini continued working for several decades as maestro and artistic director of the furnace he created in 1950.

Born in Palazzolo dello Stella (Udine), Gae Aulenti graduated in architecture at the Politecnico in Milan in 1953. From 1955 to 1963, she was the editor of Casabella magazine. She worked prevalently in the field of architecture and was responsible for significant museum renovations such as the transformation of the Gare d’Orsay into the Musée d’Orsay in Paris (1980-1987), the new exhibition design for the Musée d’Art Moderne of the Centre Pompidou in Paris (1982), the renovation of Palazzo Grassi in Venice (1986), and the restoration of the Catalan Museum in Barcelona. Her later works include the renovation of the Spazio Oberdan in Milan, where she also designed the renovation of Piazzale Cadorna. She designed showrooms for Fiat and Olivetti, as well as theatre productions. Since the late ’50s, she had also taken an interest in product design, producing a variety of objects, mostly furniture and lamps, for companies such as Poltronova, Knoll, Zanotta, Fontana Arte, and Venini.

Franco Albini was born in Robbiate (Como). He graduated with a degree in architecture from the Politecnico in Milan in 1929. The following year, he opened his own architecture studio, concentrating on product and exhibition design, and becoming one of the world’s most significant designers in this field during the course of his career. In 1945 and 1946, he directed the architectural review Casabella, and between 1949 and 1977, he turned to teaching, first at the universities in Venice and Turin until 1963, then at the Politecnico in Milan. His works are characterized by a rational severity, which is evident in works such as the renovation and interior design of the Palazzo Bianco in Genoa (1950), the design for the display of the Treasure of San Lorenzo in Genoa (1952) in collaboration with Franca Helg, and the restoration of the Palazzo Rosso in Genoa (1952-1961). His successful work in the field of design is noted for the essential elegance which distinguishes his many furniture projects, such as the Margherita armchair for Bonacina (1950), the Fiorenza armchair for Artflex (1952), the Luisa chair for Poggi (1954), and the Credenza (1967) designed in collaboration with Franca Helg. This partnership also produced the collection of glass pieces designed for San Lorenzo S.r.l. and crafted by Salviati. In the early ’60s, in collaboration with Franca Helg and Bob Noorda, he designed the stations’ furnishings and signage for Milan’s Subway Line 1.

Giuseppe Barovier went to work at the Compagnia di Venezia e Murano at a very young age and soon, due to his exceptional skills, became a maestro. He distinguished himself in various fields, from the decoration of blown pieces to the execution of murrine glass to chandeliers. In 1877, he left the Compagnia di Venezia e Murano to follow Antonio Salviati to his new glass workshop called Salviati dott. Antonio, where he worked with his brother, Benvenuto. After the Baroviers took over the ownership of the furnace in 1883, renaming it Artisti Barovier in 1890, Giuseppe became maestro and designer with his brother. Among his many creations that deserve mention are his refined murrine, which the Artisti Barovier presented at the Cà Pesaro exhibitions. When Artisti Barovier was liquidated in 1919, he, his brother Benvenuto, and their sons founded the Vetreria Artistica Barovier & C., where he worked until the end of the ‘20s.