Atlas B&B Italia

In 1953 the C&B factory was founded, later renamed B&B Italia, with the aim of industrialising the production of furniture. Its premises consisted of three buildings. The factory, designed in 1968 by Afra and Tobia Scarpa, used a modular system of precast reinforced concrete. In 1971 Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers designed the offices: a lightweight suspended box, whose grid structures and network of services were set on the exterior. In 2003 Citterio & Partners designed the research centre, a regular volume of exposed concrete and polycarbonate. In the early 1970s, the B&B headquarters became a manifesto of the company’s industrial culture.
Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers had the opportunity to experiment at Novedrate with the theories later expressed in the construction of the Centre in Paris.