B&B Italia

Italian furniture maker that developed new techniques for upholstered furniture, with designers such as Gaetano Pesce, Mario Bellini and Antonio Citterio.

Piero Ambrogio Busnelli founded the company near Como, first as C&B Italia together with Cesare Cassina. Busnelli had seen how polyurethane foam could be moulded and wanted to make upholstered furniture industrially.

Gaetano Pesce's Up series of 1969 was vacuum-packed and swelled up when the package was opened. From 1973 the company was called B&B Italia, and sofas by Mario Bellini and Antonio Citterio became standard in modern homes and offices.

Labels with B&B Italia or, on the earliest pieces, C&B Italia.

Moulded foam instead of springs and stuffing is typical of the early models.

• Furniture