One of the perennial surprises of the design world is the fact that Azucena, the Italian furniture company founded in 1947 by the architects Luigi Caccia Dominioni and Ignazio Gardella, and the designer Corrado Corradi dell'Acqua, is not better known. Its sleek but sensual (and still Italian-made) sofas, tables, lamps and other objects, many of which were designed in the 1950s and '60s, and still feel forward-looking, can be found in some of the best houses in Italy.

Over the years, Azucena's products have inspired designers, from the minimalist Andrée Putman to the maximalist Alberto Pinto. These classically modern designs are beginning to attract a new generation of admirers, including the British designer Ilse Crawford and the Milan designers Britt Moran and Emiliano Salci of Dimore Studio. Moran and Salci have used its products in their own apartments as well in projects like the Caffè Burlot for Thierry Costes in Paris — so it's fitting that they were asked to design the company's elegant new showroom, which opened earlier this year in the heart of Milan's stylish shopping district.

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Source: http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com