Michele De Lucchi was born in Ferrara in 1951 and graduated in architecture from the University of Florence. His practice spans buildings, corporate projects, museum design and exhibition curation, including pavilions for Expo 2015 in Milan, and he has held professorships at IUAV in Venice and at the Politecnico di Milano. Since 2004 he has also carved small wooden houses with a chainsaw, a sculptural practice that parallels his long engagement with timber. His collaboration with Riva 1920 runs from 2009 to the present. The Palizzata Bench (2011) is made in briccola wood from the Venetian lagoon and takes a zig-zag form; the Piazza Scala Bench followed in 2012. The Torre Lignea bookcase (2013), the Pangea table (2015), which served as a symbol of Expo 2015, and the Doga table (2022) extend a body of work that treats wood as both structure and record.
