ALVINO BAGNI ‘PIDOU’ VASES FOR RAYMOR (1979)

Offered as a set, a pair of chocolate early-production Pidou vases designed by Alvino Bagni for Raymor in 1979. Their forms are inspired by architectural elements of Renzo Piano’s Centre Pompidou (hence the name) which Bagni had visited shortly after its opening in 1977—namely the pipes that run along the facade of the famous Paris museum. Bagni's Pidou (aka Tubo) vases can interlock with one another to form complex arrangements or they can function independently. Aside from the original limited production, the UK retailer Habitat briefly reissued two of the forms with silver and gold metallic finishes in 2007 for in-store sale. More recently, Simona Cardinetti and Christoph Schnug, in collaboration with Nuove Forme, reinterpreted some of Bagni's iconic shapes—including three from the Pidou collection—in fresh chromatic colorways. We are aware of the existence of four different original shapes, generally designated by their basic alphabet forms: 'b', 'h', 'L', and 'S'. (The last two ar