Based on the ability to adapt the product to be designed to its function, use, characteristics, and the required conditions of the materials used, Mangiarotti demonstrated a skillful and refined approach to materials. Table 302 is an emblematic example of this, thanks to the skillful combination of warm Sucupira wood and the precious bronze casting base finished with a lathe. An object that shows both a skillful design and construction ability of an architect/designer, as he was, as well as a knowledgeable capacity to enhance the sensual aspect of objects through the right choice of materials.
Domus n.400, March 1963, advertisement; domus n. 408, November 1963, advertisement and page 41; I. de Guttry, M. P. Maino, Il Mobile Italiano degli anni '40 e '50, Laterza 1992 pag. 200 (similar specimen)
Angelo Mangiarotti (1921-2012) was born in Milan, where he graduated in Architecture from the Politecnico. In the early 1950s, he worked in the United States and during this period, he met Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Gropius, Mies Van Der Rohe, and Konrad Wachsmann. He was an architect, designer, and urban planner, and it was his architecture related to infrastructure, urban planning, and structural engineering that made him one of the most influential designers of the 20th century and among the most significant figures in industrial design. Industrial design, influenced by sculpture, was indeed for Mangiarotti an expression of the craftsman's skill on the material, never at the expense of function. His design work and collaborations with many important companies in the Italian furniture industry, such as Cassina, Zanotta, Bernini, Knoll, Agape, it was marked by numerous awards in the field of design. He was one of the founders of ADI (Association for Industrial Design), characterized by a vision of architecture and design as a practical, sober, and functional art.