A modern version of rattan furniture, from the early 1950s: Franco Albini’s Margherita chair (and ottoman), reconciled rattan with post-war Italian Rationalism. A dual condition of incipient industrialization and the existence of readily available traditional craftsmen coexisted in Italy at the time. Many argue that this circumstance set the basis for the development of the Italian design movement that would peak internationally in the last third of the 20th century. It is significant to consider that, when Albini was thinking rattan, many of his contemporaries, in Europe and the United States, were achieving similar formal results though the use of very different -and at the time innovative- materials such as plastics, reinforced plastics (fiberglass) or molded plywood. One of the relevant aspects of Margherita is how it uses readily available traditional craft and puts it at the service of larger theoretical principles. I imagine that a rattan craftsman from Asia or South America would have created a very different chair than Albini’s. This hypothetical chair would have a very different geometry, perhaps, and its form would be the direct result of the abilities of the craftsman and his understanding of the function the object was meant to fulfill. Margherita did not emanate from craft alone, but from a theoretical pursuit that was then materialized via a traditional material assembled by hand. The relevant question concerning this object, beyond historical or theoretical considerations, might be what is (was) the cultural value of using rattan in our society.
