Angelo Mangiarotti was born in Milan on 26 February 1921. He graduated in Architecture from Milan Polytechnic in 1948. In 1953-1954 he worked in the US, participating, among other things, in the competition for the “LOOP“ in Chicago. During this period abroad he met Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe and Konrad Wachsmann.
 
On returning from the US in 1955 he opened a studio in Milan with Bruno Morassuti, which lasted until 1960. In 1989 he launched Mangiarotti & Associates Office with headquarters in Tokyo. From 1986 to 1992 he was art director of Colle Cristalleria. In addition to his professional activities, with his works published in books, specialist magazines and newspapers, Mangiarotti also taught widely in Italian and international universities. In 1953-1954 he was visiting professor at the Institute of Design of Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago; in 1963-1964 he held a course at the Istituto Superiore di Disegno Industriale of Venice; in 1970 he was visiting professor at the University of Hawaii; in 1974 at Ecole Politecnique Fédérale of Lausanne; in 1976 at the University of Adelaide and the South Australian Institute of Technology in Adelaide; in 1982 he was visiting professor at the Faculty of Architecture of Palermo; in 1983 he was adjunct professor of Composition at the Faculty of Architecture of Florence; in 1989-90 he was visiting professor at the Faculty of Architecture of Milan; in 1997 he was visiting professor on the Industrial Design degree course of the Faculty of Architecture of Milan Polytechnic. He held numerous seminars and conferences at international level. Mangiarotti’s design activities, whose theoretical foundations were expressed in the 1987 book “In nome dell’architettura”, tend to highlight the intrinsic characteristics of every object as only “objective” designs avoid abusing their users to become recognised by the collective. The architectural style becomes the expression of a new relationship between man and the environment while Mangiarotti’s design activities reserve a very important role for plastic research. The goal of his research, always carried out with the utmost respect for the characteristics of materials, is the definition of the form of the object as a quality of the material. He died in Milan on 30 June 2012. His design work was acknowledged with numerous awards in both the design and construction fields: the Domus Formica Award (1956), the In/Arch Award for Lombardy (1962), First National Award of the Gulf of La Spezia for Industrial Design (1963), AIP-Associazione Italiana Prefabbricatori Award (1972), Prix Européen de la Construction Métallique (1979), Medal and honorary diploma at the III World Architecture Biennial of Sofia (1986), First prize in the “Concorso Targa Alcan“ (1989), Honourable Mention at the National In/Arch Awards (1989), Design Plus Award for the “Ergonomica” collection (1991), Marble Architectural Awards (1994), ADI Compasso d’oro career award (1994), “Honoris Causa“ Degree in Engineering - Faculty of Architecture. Technischen Universitat of Munich (1998), Gold medal architecture category - Accademia della Torre di Carrara (1998), “Honoris Causa” Degree in Industrial Design - Faculty of Architecture. Milan Polytechnic (2002), “Apostolo del Design“ gold medal from Rima Editrice (2006), Marble Architectural Awards 2007, honourable mention “ArchitettiVerona“ awards of the Verona Association of Architects Planners, Landscapers and Conservationists (2009)