Ico PARISI

Italian architect, artist and furniture designer Ico Parisi and his wife and frequent collaborator, Luisa Parisi, formed one of the most prolific and dynamic European design teams of the post-war period. Together they created a magnetic aesthetic that combines the refined angularity and elegance of Giò Ponti’s work with the liveliness and lightness of Carlo Mollino’s furniture. Ico Parisi – his first name is short for Domenico – was born and raised in Palermo. He moved to the northern Italian city of Como in the early 1930s, where he lived and worked for the rest of his life.

He first studied and worked as a civil engineer, then became a partner in the office of architect Giuseppe Terragni, one of the leading figures of the austere and formal rationalist design movement. After his marriage to Luisa Aiani – a former student of Giò Ponti – in 1947, their design studio became an artists’ salon. The couple’s breakthrough as designers came the following year, when their work was exhibited alongside that of Carlo Mollino, Paolo Buffa, Franco Albini and other big names, allowing them to sign contracts with manufacturers such as Cassina and Singer & Sons.