Gastone Rinaldi designed the DU 55 armchair in 1954 for RIMA, the Padua-based metal furniture company founded by his father Mario and run by the two brothers from 1948. That same year Rinaldi won the Compasso d'Oro for the DU 30 chair, and the DU 55 carries the same structural intelligence: a study of solids and voids, and a sculptural continuity between shell, armrest and leg that set it apart from the boxier upholstered seating of the immediate postwar years. It stands among the clearest expressions of Italian design's shift from artisanal furniture-making toward an industrial, sculptural language. This example shows the wraparound wood armrest construction characteristic of the original RIMA production: the armrest flows directly from the backrest into the seat edge, terminating in tapered walnut legs fitted with brass ferrules.
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SILVER Seller in Bari, Italy
