Light, Art & Design #Nanda Vigo

Of French, Spanish and Austro-Hungarian descent, this Italian architect studied in France and worked in the United States before returning to Milan to found her own studio in 1959. There she met architects such as Gió Ponti and artists such as Lucio Fontana or Piero Manzoni. Nanda Vigo‘s vision of architecture encompasses art and design, giving rise to projects in which the interior design is close to an artistic installation or lamps and furniture that are conceived as artistic objects, anticipating the Radical Design of younger Italian studios like Archizoom or Superstudio.

I always saw architecture, design, and art together as one in my projects Nanda Vigo.

Vigo is also part of the artistic avant-garde per se, as she joined the Zero Group, founded by Heinz Mack and Otto Piene, with her optical and luminous sculptures that would later lead to lamp designs and installations and interiors based on artificial light.

Within his architectural work, we can highlight the Zero House in Milan, manifesto of the homonymous artistic group completed in 1962, the interior of Lo Scarabeo Sotto La Foglia (The beetle under the leaf), house built by Gio Ponti in 1964 or the museum Remo Brindisi in Lido di Spina (1973), which reflects a holistic vision of architecture that takes design to the smallest detail, as well as the influence of avant-garde art.

Regarding design, her most recognized works are lamps such as Linea (1969), Golden Gate (1970), or Utopia (1970) for Arredoluce, which refer directly to her optical sculptures, and furniture such as the Block table or the Due Piu chair (1971), halfway between a design product and an artistic piece.