Elegant Cherrytree Sofa by Guglielmo Ulrich or Paolo Buffa, 1940s

With a surname that loosely translates to a synonym for “bizarre” in Italian, Milanese designer and architect Paolo Buffa is best known for capturing the best of both old and new in his plush, enveloping lounge chairs and wingback chairs as well as his range of modern tables, each dazzling and provocative but built using classical techniques.

Purposely playful and airy, mid-century Italian interiors encouraged merriment and socializing. Buffa’s work was well suited to this, but unlike the postwar designers who established recognizable trademarks and signatures, his vintage furniture for Cassina and other firms — the sculptural side tables and case pieces of walnut and solid oak, the luxurious sheepskin sofas — differed considerably from one design to the next, making them appealing to a range of interior decorators and socialites with specific taste. The son of a highly sought-after artist, Giovanni Buffa, Paolo graduated in 1927 from Politecnico di Milano. He then spent time working under architects and designers Gio Ponti and Emilio Lancia. Ponti, who himself crafted thousands of furnishings and endlessly creative rooms, was so taken with the young designer that in 1928 he featured his simple and elegant rosewood dressing table in his new magazine, Domus.

After opening a firm with his regular collaborator Antonio Cassi Ramelli, Buffa became one of the leading tastemakers of Italian mid-century modern furnishings, designing for villas and residential buildings across the country. His style was a mix of Art Deco, Rationalism, neoclassicism and a bit of whimsy. He used high-quality materials and regularly worked with local ateliers known for their fine craftsmanship to produce his designs, such as Serafino Arrighi and Marelli & Colico. In 1940, he partnered with the Mario Quarti furniture studio on the royal palace of Albania’s King Zog, with Buffa designing the furniture, and in 1951, Egypt’s King Farouk enlisted him to redecorate his yacht.

While Buffa’s transcendent pieces are now collector’s items, there are a few still in production, such as those he made with Angelo Marelli. His eponymous firm, the Italian furniture producer Eredi Marelli, still manufactures some designs based on Buffa’s archives.

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Furniture designer Guglielmo Ulrich was born in Milan to a family with Danish origins. After completing his studies at the Brera Academy, the Scuola Speciale di Architettura and the Polytechnic University of Milan in 1927, Ulrich’s status quickly rose in high-society circles, as he’d gained a reputation for creating elegant interiors for a range of commercial and private clients. Architecture and furniture design in Milan was evolving during the era owing to industrialization, and Ulrich’s modernist work was seen as fresh and forward-looking.

In 1930, Ulrich established the furniture company ARCA — which was short for Arredamento Casa — with colleagues Attilio Scaglia and Renato Wild. Together they created a platform for Ulrich’s designs, which were quite different from the typical furnishings found in Europe at the time. 

Ulrich favored simple lines — tapered table and chair legs, lean silhouettes — and the graceful contours of his console tables and dining chairs are representative of an endeavor to streamline neoclassical forms. He created luxurious but practical furniture and home accessories that featured an emphasis on craftsmanship as well as an integration of exotic materials such as ebonized wood, opaline glass and green marble. Ulrich’s designs were very much in line with what we now know as the Art Deco style, which was officially introduced to the world in 1925 at Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris. He collaborated with legendary architect and designer Gio Ponti on designs for a hotel property in the late 1930s and co-edited Ponti’s revered Domus magazine with Milanese architect Melchiorre Bega. 

By the 1950s, Ulrich was firmly established as one of the most influential Milanese designers, having a hand in designing homes, commercial properties and more. In 1961, he won the Fiera di Trieste award for his lightweight Trieste chair, a seat that shared common ground with Ponti’s iconic Superleggera chair and was produced by Saffa. 

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