B&B Italia’s Piero Lissoni reflects on Space Furniture’s 30th anniversary, inspiration, risk, and the future of design

Photography by Jin Cheng Wong

The stately conservation villa comprising one half of the Space Furniture showroom in Singapore offers a dramatic counterpoint to the contemporary glass structure by Woha architects that composes the other. It’s a fitting backdrop – daring in its modernity, yet with a deep respect for heritage – for Boulevard’s interview with Piero Lissoni.

The renowned architect and designer took on the mantle of artistic director at B&B Italia in 2021 – a brand that boasts a rich heritage of cutting-edge contemporary design. Lightly edited for clarity, Lissoni talks here about updating the storied furniture brand, the architecture of superyachts, taking risks and crashing the past in pursuit of the future of design.

BOULEVARD: So starting with B&B Italia, how do you approach designing for a brand with both a strong design DNA but also reputation for breaking the mould?

PIERO LISSONI: When you think about B&B Italia, it was born in 1965 and it was founded by these two visionary guys, to be the most contemporary manufacturer of furniture. More contemporary, for sure, than others at the time in Italy, or in Europe. They discovered young architects like Mario Bellini, Gaetano Pesce, the sons of Carlo Scarpa [Afra and Tobia]; but they also put it in the minds of these designers to be super-contemporary. And since becoming artistic director in 2021, I try to think the same way.

When I started to work with B&B Italia, the first topic was – we need to detach from [stablemate brand] Maxalto. Maxalto is elegant, gentle, and a little bit bourgeois. B&B Italia needs to be contemporary. To take some risks. To choose something a little more risqué. I didn’t create that – it’s in the DNA of the factory.

BLVD: And how do you stay true to B&B Italia whilst taking these risks? Is it your contemporary edge or are you drawing it out of the brand heritage?

LISSONI: I don’t like to take risks inorder to be pure Lissoni. Being contemporary is like driving a huge boat – you change directions slowly, every day, but in the end, you start to feel the change. Ultimately, if you’re a leader, you need to take risks. Your image, your language, needs risks. Otherwise, you’re not a leader.

BLVD: B&B Italia was one of the first brands to navigate a path between the traditional aesthetic of stuffy or rococo furniture on the one hand, and the near-unusable avant-garde of then-contemporary design on the other, instead pioneering a space for ultra-chic luxury. How do you now balance design and comfort?

LISSONI: It’s like a cocktail recipe. You know more or less the right ingredients, but not exactly how much – so you need to try it. And you try again and again; it’s an evolution. Only the Germans think about ‘Form und Funktion’. Comfort inhabits form and beauty. It shouldn’t be a choice between the two – they’re connected. First, I think I look for beauty, but I’ve found that it should be comfortable.

BLVD: Switching gears somewhat, you were appointed art director of superyacht builder Sanlorenzo in 2018 – how did you approach the design for such a wildly different space?

LISSONI: When I started designing for Sanlorenzo, I would think to myself: Why, inside these highly technological machines, these great floating houses, do they have such small corridors, so many divisions, too many little cabins – such a small ambiance. So I thought about it as I would any other architecture project, where we design for open space, and why would I not use the same language for yachts?

When I design buildings, the feedback crosses over between the inside and the outside. I never do a building where I design the facade but I don’t know what’s happening inside. It’s completely connected. The facade has to be connected with the inside life.

So when I started on boats I used exactly the same approach. And it’s the same for B&B Italia. Even the showroom: I designed these panels with back-lighting [as seen on pages 52-53], walls in paper and others in stone. The shops are stages. You’re in a special theatre – it has to have an atmosphere, but also a capacity to shock you, a little.

BLVD: So where do you get your inspiration – is the same for the yachts as the buildings and furniture?

LISSONI: Honestly, inspiration is every- where… But importantly, for me, it’s a dialogue. When I design a piece like this [waving to the ‘Eryt’ armchairs from his 2023 collection for B&B Italia, on which we’re now, elegantly, comfortably, sitting], there has to be dialogue, it doesn’t take place in a vacuum.

For each new piece, I need a day-by-day dialogue with the factory. When I’m working with a factory, sometimes they’ll show me a new material, or new technology, and that will take us in a whole other direction. The future of design is in the hands of the factories, not the designers.

And that’s a great thing, it’s a way to move on from the past. Because sometimes you need to crash the past before jumping into the future.

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