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Gianni Pettena

1940
Designed for Poltronova
Rumble

Gianni Pettena (Bolzano 1940) is an architect, artist, critic and architectural historian. Was member of Global Tools, professor of History of Contemporary Architecture at the University of Florence, he also taught at California State University of Florence and the Architectural Association in London. Co-founder and inspirer in the late 1960s of the Italian Radical Architecture movement, from which much of the contemporary experimentation in the field of architecture and design originated, he carries out experimental work aimed at eliminating disciplinary boundaries and revisiting and reinventing alphabets and languages through projects, furniture, installations, exhibitions, theoretical writings, essays and texts. The uniqueness of his long career in informed by his rejection of discipline-based roles and methodologies, creating temporary works while constantly seeking alliance with conceptual art, Austrian radical design, Land Art and experimental music. His work has been presented in museums and institution such as the Venice Biennale, Mori Museum in Tokyo, Barbican Centre in London, Pac in Milan, Museion in Bolzano, the Frac Centre in Orléans and the Pompidou Centers in Paris and Metz. His archive is housed at the CCA in Montréal.