87s Enzo Mari ‘ambo’ coffee table set for Zanotta set/2

The well-known Italian furniture manufacturer was founded in the mid-50s by Aurelio Zanotta and still enjoys a high reputation in the furniture design environment. Zanotta creates innovations with a museum character.

Enzo Mari is born in Novara in 1932 and he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Milan. After completing his studies, he devoted himself immediately to the nascent world of industrial design and to an intense artistic activity. One of the traits of Mari’s work, internationally renowned as some of the best Italian design, is the unending quest for, and experimentation with, new product forms and meanings. Sometimes he even moved consciously outside the mainstream of traditional industrial design.

In 1971 he participated critically in the M.o.M.A. show: “Italy: The New Domestic Landscape.” Considered one of the greatest theoreticians of Italian and world design, many publications are dedicated to his work and he played a part in major institutions, such as the Industrial Design Association (he was its president from 1976 to 1979). Among the most important awards: two Compasso d’Oro prizes and the acquisition of his works by several modern art museums. Mari’s activities has extended to collaboration with public bodies, research and design of town planning and teaching, through lectures and courses in Italy and abroad.

Since 1981 Enzo Mari has been working with Zanotta. The ambo coffee tables are made of glass and brushed steel, which was a fully new technique in 1987 when Mari designed the ambo series ‘glueing’ the feet at the glass table top.