{"id":117904,"date":"2026-03-10T10:00:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T08:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lacasainordine.it\/2026\/03\/design-icons-harry-bertoia\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T10:00:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T08:00:15","slug":"design-icons-harry-bertoia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lacasainordine.it\/en\/2026\/03\/design-icons-harry-bertoia\/","title":{"rendered":"Design Icons – Harry Bertoia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Arieto Bertoia was born on March 10, 1915<\/a><\/strong> in a small town a few kilometers from Pordenone but while still young he moved to the United States, where he became Harry and an American citizen.<\/strong> A trained sculptor and goldsmith, during his university years he acquired an excellent knowledge of metals and their processing techniques<\/strong>, applying them to the various pieces he works with: from surrounding space to movement, from sound to design, becoming a distinctive feature of his work.<\/p>\n

His love of metalworking found expression first in sculptures\u2014the famous \u201cscreens<\/strong>\u201d dating back to the 1950s<\/strong>, linear compositions made up of hundreds of small metal shapes\u2014and then in furniture <\/em>design, mainly thanks to his encounters with important designers and architects such as Charles and Ray Eames<\/strong>, Florence Knoll<\/strong>, Alvar Aalto<\/strong>, and Eero Saarinen<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Harry Bertoia and his \u201cscreens\u201d credits Knoll<\/em>
\n\"Harry
\nIn the early 1950s he began his professional partnership with Knoll International, which allowed him to create the famous \u201cBertoia Collection<\/strong>\u201d. Industrial metal rod is shaped and ennobled in a collection of chairs and armchairs<\/strong>, among which the Diamond <\/strong>chair stands out.<\/p>\n

Bertoia Collection, 1952, Knoll International<\/em>
\n\"Harry<\/p>\n

Diamond Chair, 1952, Knoll International<\/em>
\n\"metal
\nA chair-sculpture made of a curved metal grid<\/strong> to create an enveloping surface with no distinction between seat and back, “a sculpture made of air and steel<\/em>” as Bertoia himself defined it. At first glance, the comparison with the contemporary Wire Lounge Chair by the Eameses comes naturally, and the same was true for the Hermann Miller company – manufacturer of the Wire Lounge chair – so much so that it sued Knoll, forcing the designer to change some details of his Diamond.<\/p>\n

Wire Lounge Chair, Charles and Ray Eames, 1951, Vitra (right) and Diamond chair, 1952, Knoll International (left)<\/em>
\n\"lounge<\/p>\n

Bertoia Collection Chair and Stool, 1952, Knoll International<\/em>
\n\"outdoor
\nAlthough the collection for Knoll was a huge success, Bertoia felt that design was not his path and left Knoll to dedicate himself entirely to sculpture, creating the famous \u201csound sculptures<\/strong>\u201d. Realizing the sound generated by metal, he began to create compositions used as real musical instruments, collecting symphonies that even led him to hold concerts and record<\/strong> albums entitled \u201cSonanbient\u201d.<\/p>\n

Harry Bertoia and the sound sculptures<\/em>
\n\"Harry
\nHarry Bertoia died in November 1978<\/strong> and we remember him as an eclectic designer who approached different disciplines with a spirit of technical experimentation and still today represents an important example of method, rigor and dedication to research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Arieto Bertoia was born on March 10, 1915 in a small town a few kilometers from Pordenone but while still young he moved to the United States, where he became Harry and an American citizen. A trained sculptor and goldsmith, during his university years he acquired an excellent knowledge of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":73586,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[399],"tags":[410,412],"class_list":["post-117904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-design-trends","tag-design-icons","tag-interior-en","category-399","description-off"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lacasainordine.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lacasainordine.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lacasainordine.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lacasainordine.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lacasainordine.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lacasainordine.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lacasainordine.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lacasainordine.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lacasainordine.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lacasainordine.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}