The Brazilian-Italian architect and designer Lina Bo Bardi was born in Rome in December of 1914 as Achillina Bo. Early in her life she decided to study architecture during a time when architecture schools accepting women were few and far between. She ended up studying at the Rome College of Architecture where she graduated in 1939. After school in 1942 she opened her own office in with a school friend but with the onset of WWII there weren’t many openings for architects and she had to take on jobs as a writer and illustrator for the Italian architecture magazine Domus.

During her time at Domus she was sent to Rome to interview an art historian called Pietro Maria Bardi. Despite her being part of the resistance and Pietro Maria Bardi being an ardent supporter of Mussolini they fell in love. After the war they had no other option but to flee the country for São Paulo, Brazil where Pietro had been commissioned to head an art museum.

Coming to Brazil the couple immediately immersed themselves in the Brazilian cultural scene and Bo Bardi was enthralled by the country’s modernist architects like Oscar Niemeyer and Lucio Costa.

In 1951 she designed and built one of her most celebrated works, Casa de Vidro (the Glass House) in the outskirts of São Paulo for her and her husband. Here she stayed until her passing in 1992.

That same year, 1951, she designed the Bowl Chair. With her own design vision calling for “a process of humanization of art” she made the chair “in relation with the proportions of the human body”. The semi-spherical seat can be moved independent of the steel frame making it recline to whatever position the sitter prefers. In 1953 it was featured in the US magazine Interiors where it was described as a “cuddle bowl”.

Product information

The size 40x50 cm (approx 16x20”) are signed and printed on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Bright White 310g archival paper and are sold in a limited edition of 50 prints.

The size 30x40 cm (approx 12x16”) are printed on Hahnemühle Fine Art Studio Enhanced 210g archival paper.