Bohemian 72

Origin

Bohemian 72 is the rattan furniture collection that Gabriella Crespi designed in the spring of 1972 from the terrace of her home in Milan. GUBI says it belonged to her wider Bamboo Collection of 1972-1975, alongside the Rising Sun and Five Positions collections, and that the pieces were produced only for private clients in her lifetime. In the year Crespi would have turned 100, fifty years after the designs were first conceived, GUBI worked from her original drawings and put them into production for the first time.

Design Language

The collection comprises a lounge chair, a three-seater sofa, an ottoman and a floor lamp, all made of rattan. GUBI calls it the culmination of Crespi's career-long aim to create furniture that unites indoor and outdoor living, and links it to her interest in natural materials, her fascination with stacked sculptural forms and her curiosity about Eastern cultures and philosophies. Repeating layers of vertically coiled rattan vines were an unusual choice at the time. Making them true to the originals calls for real craftsmanship: rattan canes are steamed, then bent by hand around a die cut to the measurements of her drawings.

Key Pieces

• Bohemian 72 Lounge Chair
• Bohemian 72 Sofa, a three-seater
• Bohemian 72 Ottoman
• A floor lamp, which is a lighting piece outside the furniture library