Cappellini Names Kurt Wallner Its New CEO

The Italian furniture brand Cappellini has named Kurt Wallner its CEO, to work alongside art director Giulio Cappellini. Though Wallner was previously working in-house as a managing director, he will assist Cappellini in a newly created position. Wallner’s goal is to take the contemporary brand into the future; more specifically, his focus will be on diversifying its offerings in residential and contract furniture and expanding into large-scale pieces and high-end interior design.

Over the course of the past decade, Wallner’s career has included roles at both Poltrona Frau and Cassina. His focus on interior design saw collaborations with designers and architects such as David Chipperfield, Foster + Partners, Piero Lissoni, and Zaha Hadid come to fruition. Cappellini, founded in 1949, was acquired by Italian furniture group Poltrona Frau in 2004, and then 10 years later by American company Haworth.

The Milan-based Giulio Cappellini, an architect by training, is the son of company founder Enrico Cappellini. He has worked in various, and often creative, roles at his family’s company since 1979. He has been instrumental in fostering the careers of young international designers such as Tom Dixon (who created the brand’s iconic Pylon chair), Jasper Morrison, and Marcel Wanders—bringing them in to create special designs for the brand.

For decades, the company has exemplified high-end Italian furniture and the modernist aesthetic for which it is known. And while the style, as well as the curvilinear-leaning silhouettes often reflected in Cappellini’s own designs, feels particularly prevalent within the current design zeitgeist, it will be interesting to see how Wallner both grows and preserves the brand. For a 70-year-old heritage company, the future may be now.

Last month, the brand, along with Istituto Marangoni, launched its fifth annual design contest, No Code Generation, which offers the winning young designers a full scholarship to the product and furniture design masters program at Istituto Marangoni Milano Design—plus an internship at Cappellini’s design studio in Milan. At last month’s Salone del Mobile, the brand presented a so-called “Cappellini Circus” at the annual spring design fair.

Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest