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Riccardo Forti

CHAMELEON: THE MOST DESIRED!

As Bellini himself says: 'Camaleonda is a neologism that I invented in 1970 by crossing two words: the name of that extraordinary animal that is the chameleon capable of adapting to its environment and the word wave that indicates the curves of the sea and desert. Both of these words describe the form and function of this seat.'

Camaleonda, the system designed by Mario Bellini in 1970 has over the years become an authentic icon of Italian design. 
Presented to the public in 1970, Camaleonda has gone through 5 decades of design history as an absolute protagonist. Designed by Mario Bellini, this modular sofa defined the interior design aesthetics of an era thanks to its great success with audiences and critics. 
Camaleonda is extraordinary mainly in its aesthetic characteristics and versatility. The generous polyurethane padding that forms the characteristic capitonné, obtained through the innovative system of cables, hooks and rings designed by Bellini, which guarantee its appearance and modularity. In fact, thanks to tie rods and rings, the modules can be detached and recombined at will, allowing the sofa to adapt to the evolving taste and dynamic needs of those who use it.
The fundamental characteristic of Camaleonda is its almost infinite modularity, a geometric nature that allows each element to become a sort of gigantic pixel through which to define one's own home environment. By hooking and unfastening seats, backrests and armrests, you can have the luxury to change your mind as many times as you want, moving and redesigning the space. 

The generous composition presented in this auction is made up of 
4 large modules 
3 medium modules 
5 back modules 
2 armrest modules 
The living room was taken over from an important home in Milan where it remained for over 50 years. The modules are all covered with the original brown velvet and are in very good condition of use. The structure and padding are solid and functional, the upholstery intact and not worn but with only slight signs of use. The lanyard rings and hooks are complete. 
All modules have original B&B Camaleonda Bellini labels on the underside 
From the point of view of conservation, it is a truly exceptional specimen. All elements of the living room have been thoroughly cleaned and sanitised 

Large module dimensions  96x96 h 36 cm
Medium module dimensions  65x96 h 36 cm
Back dimensions: 95x28 h 33 cm


Design Radicale includes insured shipping to Italy and Europe, shipping costs as shown.
For shipping to the rest of the world, the cost is approximate. We will provide a quote when the auction is finished, depending on the destination.


The same designer, Mario Bellini, of Camaleonda said: 'At the threshold of the 70s, upholstered domestic furniture still stagnated mostly between tired variations of the historical and elitist typologies of radical-provocative leaps forward, which - although stimulating - were hardly capable of questioning the relationship between the evolution of new behaviours in the domestic space and the types of furniture available on the market at the time'.
Camaleonda, therefore, is not a simple sofa, but the symbol of change. Of transformation, of the passage from one era to the next.

Mario Bellini is an architect and designer known all over the world. He has received the Compasso d'Oro Award eight times and 25 of his works are in the permanent collection of the MoMA in New York, which dedicated a retrospective to him in 1987. He was director of Domus magazine (1985-1991). He has designed numerous art and architecture exhibitions both in Italy and abroad, among the latest ones are at Palazzo Reale with Giotto's masterpieces (2016) and at the 1900s Museum dedicated to Margherita Sarfatti (2018-2019). In 2015 the Milan Triennale awarded him the Gold Medal for Lifetime Achievement for Architecture and in 2017 dedicated a retrospective exhibition to him. Since 1980, he has mainly devoted himself to architecture. The buildings designed and built include the Portello District of Fiera Milano, the Exhibition and Congress Centre of Villa Erba in Cernobbio (Como), the Tokyo Design Centre in Japan, the America Headquarters of Natuzzi in the United States, the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, the Headquarters of the Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt, the Museum of the History of the City of Bologna, the building for the Department of Islamic Arts in the Louvre in Paris, and the new Congress Centre in Milan, the largest in Europe. The T3 international air terminal was recently completed in Rome-Fiumicino, while the new Headquarters of Generali Group in Trieste has just been inaugurated. The projects currently underway are the New Polytechnic School of Genoa (2006-2020), a vast hotel and residential facility on Virgin Gorda Island in the British Virgin Islands (2018-2020) and the new RAI headquarters in Milan (2018-2020) . It has several projects under study, among which, is the 'Bin-County Project', a new city for entertainment, sport and culture in the Harbin district of China (2018-2023) and a large sports, cultural complex and residential 'Oasis' in the Gulf countries (2014-2022).

C&B

The B&B company was founded in 1966 by the already well-known Cesare Cassina of the family that owns the company of the same name, and by the younger Piero Ambrogio Busnelli as C&B (Cassina & Busnelli) with the idea of using the most innovative technologies to obtain a wider production in a period in which the production of furniture was still linked to craftsmanship.

In the sixties, through the injection molding technology discovered in London by Busnelli, [2] various furnishing elements were produced such as Up without frame (design Gaetano Pesce), Coronado (design Afra and Tobia Scarpa) with only two assembly screws, Lombrico (design Marco Zanuso) and Amanta (Mario Bellini). In 1966 the company developed, in collaboration with a Bayer representative [2], the technology of cold-foamed polyurethane in molds and applied it to the production of upholstered furniture. Coronado by Afra and Tobia Scarpa is the first upholstered furniture that uses this technology. In 1969 he created Serie Up with the designer Gaetano Pesce, the first collection of armchair seats packaged 'under vacuum' capable of obtaining, in its maximum contraction, up to 90% less than the volume.
B&B Italia - from the seventies to 2000
In 1972, the product Le Bambole was launched, with the design by Mario Bellini and awarded with the Compasso d'Oro the same year, with an advertising campaign by Oliviero Toscani which starred Andy Warhol's muse, Donna Jordan, topless in jeans, heeled legs in the air. [2] [3] Busnelli commissioned the project for the B&B Italia headquarters in Novedrate from a young Renzo Piano, then twenty-three year old associated with Richard Rogers. The building, completed in 1973, consisted of a unit suspended within a tubular steel and glass structure that anticipated the architecture of the famous Center Pompidou in Paris, later designed by the architects themselves. [2] [5]
In 1973 Busnelli took over the shares of Cassina [2] and changed the name of the company to B&B Italia (where the first B, he said almost as a joke, indicated the banks that had given him help in the initiative). [2] In 1974 the Sisamo wardrobe was designed, the first wardrobe with a patented opening system with coplanar doors which in 1984 won the Compasso d'oro award again in 1987 for the Sity seating system designed by Antonio Citterio. The subsequent year it was named as the company for 'constant integration work carried out to combine the values of technical-scientific research with the values needed for functionality and expressiveness of products'.
At that time, the first of his sons, Giorgio (just over twenty) joined Piero ('Pierino') Busnelli, later Giancarlo in 1976 and then Emanuele in 1991 joined the company as well. [2] In 1991, when the company entered into a joint venture with Costa Cruises for the furnishing of ships (Pierino Busnelli wanted to deal directly with this, who died at the age of 88 in January 2014), [5] Giorgio took over the management of the company, beginning the internationalisation phase. [2]
Years: 2000 and 2010
In 2003, 51.4% of B&B Italia (which has JP Morgan as its advisor) was sold to the Opera fund, a start-up in the sector. [6] While the Busnelli brothers focused on the research centre, the management of the company went to a new team of managers with results that Giorgio Busnelli would later define as 'questionable': [6] in eight years, three directors and eighteen managers changed while the requests for cost reduction continued. Thus in 2011 (the third generation had already entered the company with Massimiliano, Giorgio's son) [2] the Busnellis bought back what they sold for about sixty million and regained control of the company.
During 2011-2012, Husk was created, the seating family designed by Patricia Urquiola and Tobi-Hishi, design Barber & Osgerby, after the Bend-Sofa by Urquiola and the ShelfX bookcase by Naoto Fukasawa [2] were previously born. In March 2012 the company acquired 25% of Moooi, a Dutch design company founded by Marcel Wanders and Casper Vissers and specialised in furnishing accessories and lighting. [7]
After refusing offers from two multinationals (the Knoll group, listed on Wall Street, and Haworth, owner of Poltrona Frau, Cassina and Cappellini), [8] in June 2015 the Busnellis sold 80% of the capital of B&B Italia to the private equity fund Investindustrial of Andrea Bonomi. [9] However, the management of the company remained in the hands of Giorgio Busnelli, a minority shareholder with his brother Emanuele. [9] In September 2016, B&B Italia entered the high-end kitchens segment by taking over 70% of Arcilinea, a Vicenza-based company of the Fortuna family which continued as a minority shareholder with Silvio Fortuna as president. [1]

Italy - 1970-1979 - Plastic, Textiles, Wood

Mario Bellini - C&B Italia - Armchair, Sofa (7) - Camaleonda

Design & Contemporary Furniture

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7 October

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Design & Contemporary Furniture

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Mario Bellini - C&B Italia - Armchair, Sofa (7) - Camaleonda

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