Mix Master

With a hand in the creative direction of more than a dozen brands, including his own multidisciplinary studio, Italian architect Piero Lissoni is shaping the landscape of highend design.

- Rachel Gallaher

KITCHENS PLAY A pivotal role in the timeline of Piero Lissoni’s life. From childhood conversations around the dinner table regarding his creative ambitions to the small apartment in Milan where he set up his first studio, the architect followed his passion for creating spaces through classrooms, offices and studios around the globe before landing, in 1986, at Boffi—a purveyor of (go figure) luxury kitchens.

“For me, it was like a special trampoline jump,” Lissoni says of the move, made when he was just 30 years old, which would help launch his career and cement him as one of the most prolific designers of our time. “I was very young, and Boffi was not in a fantastic situation in terms of creativity, economy or credibility.”

Lissoni, along with Roberto Gavazzi, Boffi’s current CEO, would help revamp the company from the ground up. When he joined the brand, which had emerged as an industry leader in the 1950s, it had reached a crossroads. After the 1972 death of Dino Boffi, one of founder Piero Boffi’s three sons and the brand’s forward-facing creative force, the nearly 40-year-old business had lost the unique, pioneering edge that had set it apart. By the mid-1980s, Dino’s brother Paolo was looking for a visionary to help lead the company into the 21st century. With a factory headquartered just outside Milan, he had quick access to some of the greatest design talent in Italy, if not the world, and yet he took a risk by naming the young Lissoni as art director and bringing on Gavazzi as managing director.