Venini Murano Glass Vase, 1988 Reissue by Tomaso Buzzi

Blue Murano glass vase with gold leaf, made by Venini as a reissue of the model designed by Tomaso Buzzi. 

Ø cm 18 h cm 37

Tomaso Buzzi (Sondrio, September 30, 1900 – Rapallo, February 16, 1981) was a renowned Italian architect, designer, interior decorator, and artist of the 20th century. Considered one of the most cultured and eclectic figures of his era, Buzzi liked to define the architect primarily as “a conductor.” After graduating in architecture in 1923 from the Polytechnic University of Milan, where he also worked as an assistant and professor until 1954, he began a long and fruitful collaboration with Gio Ponti. Together with other designers, in 1927 he founded the “Il Labirinto” association to promote modern furnishings and was active among the leading interpreters of Italian Art Deco.
Highly active in the applied arts, Buzzi designed furniture, ceramics, lamps, clocks, and lace. Between 1932 and 1934, he was artistic director of the Venini & C. glassworks, for which he created famous vases with classical and Etruscan forms inspired by ancient musical instruments or nature (such as the Alga and Laguna series).
He was one of the most sought-after architects and interior decorators by Italy’s most exclusive bourgeoisie and nobility, including families such as the Volpi, Agnelli, Visconti di Modrone, Falk, and Pirelli families, overseeing the restoration and furnishing of countless historic villas, embassies, and monumental palaces in Italy and abroad.
In the postwar period (between 1958 and 1971), Buzzi purchased an ancient Franciscan monastery in Umbria, radically transforming it into the project of his life: an ideal, fantastical, and esoteric theater-city inspired by the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili and conceived as a realm of imagination and culture.