In the years of production for Poggi, we sometimes find ourselves in front of real "domestic animals", which Albini evoked in his drawings. One of these is certainly the Cicognino "valet stand" table produced in 1952: one of the three slender legs extends to become a "handle-beak", making it easy to transport the object. The support surface is surrounded by a sheet of wood so as to become a tray. As observed by M. Fagiolo, the "Cicognino" is an object that seems to come out of Walt Disney's pencil, and still appears to us as an extremely current drawing (not surprisingly it is part of Albini's design pieces returned to production with the Cassina company).

The Cavalletto table was presented for the first time in 1948 in Milan for the exhibition The style of modern furniture organized by Fede Cheti. In this version, however, the characteristic brass rod bracing appears reversed compared to the final version. Reported to the Compasso d’oro, this table has as its main feature that of looking like a temporary object, which can be dismantled and folded quickly, almost for display use. The elegance of the profiles and details of the definitive version of 1950, produced by the Poggi company, highlights once again how thin the boundary was between the language of lightness and of setting up, with scrupulousness and technical and formal attention. by Franco Albini for the development of a design object. The final structure was in solid ash or rosewood, with a steel bracing; the shelf was sometimes provided with a wool cloth cover.

For the installation at the VII Triennale, Franco Albini designs some new pieces. One of these is a new all-wood version of the already presented rocking chaise-longue, then produced by the Poggi company of Pavia starting in 1959. The object, with the name "Canapo", returned to production in 2008 with the Cassina company in Meda, but it is the result of an experimentation on the theme of the rocking chaise-longue, which began with a series of prototypes as early as the 1930s. Starting from the 1937 furnishings of the Albini house in which a mechanistic chaise-longue appears, already presented at the 1936 Triennale, built in a tubular structure, with exposed springs and foam rubber mattress, which is fixed, in an apparent unstable equilibrium, to a mighty iron pedestal. A very similar version is found about a year later, again in Albini's apartment, but this time already with the concept of rocking, made with a tubular structure of black painted iron, wooden seat and foldable foam cushions.

In the second rearrangement of the furnishings of his apartment in via Cimarosa in Milan, Albini inserts a series of new objects designed by him. One of these is a floor lamp, later called "Machine gun" due to its structure similar to that of a field machine gun. The lamp has the character of a "ready-made", an ironic "object trouvé" with a Dadaist spirit, in which a brass tube is assembled (through which the electric cable passes), a metal support element bent in a "V ”, And on top of the tube an aluminum lampshade. In another version, the brass tube is grafted onto a smooth rod like a gun body to which two wooden feet are attached, creating the same support system with three points of support.

The generating idea of this project, which appeared for the first time in the furnishings of Casa Albini in 1938, was to fit the technological components of the radio between two thick sheets of crystal, thus "stripping" the technological attributes and freeing the radio instrument. of the heavy dress that was customary to put on him, disguising him as a wooden piece of furniture. The radio object then fits into the crystal that served to support it, but above all to expose its mechanisms, to make visible what had always been hidden, minimizing the "container" to emphasize the "content". Although subsequently elaborated in several similar versions between 1938 and 1940, the mobile radio has become an object-symbol of the constant search for the dematerialization of objects, of that enhancement of the "void" that Albini pursues in his idea of design, which seems poetically abstract from the cultural context prevailing in those years.

Its main feature is that it can be completely disassembled by means of screws which, while ensuring the absolute rigidity of the structure, allow it to be easily disassembled and to minimize its bulk, facilitating packaging and transport. The top is designed to hover in the air, thanks to four wooden cones fixed on parallelepiped angles, which horizontally tie the shaped beams and vertically, from below, receive the graft of the tapered legs, which rest on the ground expanding plastically into a generous foot.

In the LB7 bookcase produced by Poggi (1956), we find all the principles discussed at length by Albini on the theme of the lightened upright (from the 1940 Scipione Exhibition to the 1956 Olivetti store), which in this modular system becomes a light structure, between the ceiling and floor, designed to mark the development of a mobile wall, a virtual diaphragm for interiors. In fact, the uprights, fixed by pressure between the floor and the ceiling, offer a range of adjustment ranging from 268cm to 290cm, while a series of holes allows the possibility of placing containers and shelves at various heights, being also able to expand longitudinally in the space, with a module about 90 cm wide. Subsequently, a self-supporting version was also designed, without the ceiling attachment system, also produced by Poggi with the name of LB10.

The Il Veliero bookcase is an emblematic object of Albinian planning, as it clearly reflects its passionate search for a balance point "between visual instability and effective stability, between virtual movement and stasis", between engineering experimentation and museum display . The Il Veliero bookcase is a sort of aerial sculpture that places the books, true protagonists of the function, in a metaphysical suspension. Albini designs each element rejecting prefabricated components, with the exception of the Securit glass (already used for the mobile radio), the metal rods, the cables and the brass bolts. A subtle play of tensions and compressions binds the materials, tense and forced to the maximum, becoming harmonic elements of an instrument designed to build a new idea of floating space at the service of man. Only one prototype of the bookcase was created for Albini's apartment in via De Togni: one night the sailing ship collapsed and shattered like a glass dream. After almost seventy years, the Cassina company decides to reproduce this mythical object.

1940 development of the model designed for the Albini house, and the Living room in a villa, VII Triennale di Milano 1952 (first version with seat support strap) 1956 (second version with vertical legs and without seat support strap) 1967 Production Poggi - Reinterpretation of the first Fiorenza made in 1940 for the Albini house. Poggi. It is an armchair designed in such a way as to give a uniformly distributed support to the entire surface of the body parts of the seated person, as if to create the buoyancy conditions of a body in a liquid. The support surface of the seat, the backrest and the armrests is obtained with a sheet of foam rubber subjected to an interweaving of elastic rubber band, stretched over a tubular iron structure.

1940 development of the model designed for the Albini house, and the Living room in a villa, VII Triennale di Milano 1952 (first version with seat support strap) 1956 (second version with vertical legs and without seat support strap) 1967 Production Poggi - Reinterpretation of the first Fiorenza made in 1940 for the Albini house. Poggi. It is an armchair designed in such a way as to give a uniformly distributed support to the entire surface of the body parts of the seated person, as if to create the buoyancy conditions of a body in a liquid. The support surface of the seat, the backrest and the armrests is obtained with a sheet of foam rubber subjected to an interweaving of elastic rubber band, stretched over a tubular iron structure.

1940 development of the model designed for the Albini house, and the Living room in a villa, VII Triennale di Milano 1952 (first version with seat support strap) 1956 (second version with vertical legs and without seat support strap) 1967 Production Poggi - Reinterpretation of the first Fiorenza made in 1940 for the Albini house. Poggi. It is an armchair designed in such a way as to give a uniformly distributed support to the entire surface of the body parts of the seated person, as if to create the buoyancy conditions of a body in a liquid. The support surface of the seat, the backrest and the armrests is obtained with a sheet of foam rubber subjected to an interweaving of elastic rubber band, stretched over a tubular iron structure.

The theme of the tube from the mid-1950s becomes one of Albini's most recurring themes in the study of support structures. At the apex of this research is the "Three Pieces" armchair, PL19, designed together with Franca Helg for Poggi. The external structure in tube, like a scaffolding trellis (the wide feet highlight this) develops upwards with curved lines, reminiscent of the fluid movement of the more controlled pieces of Art Nouveau. Anchored to this structure, the large seat, the enveloping backrest, armrests and the even wider "shield" headrest, designed like half a disk, float as if suspended, detached from each other. Totem armchair, "Punt-e-mes", throne, neo-liberty armchair, moon landing craft, are some of the images that evoked this mysterious seat with a large out-of-scale effect.

First edition 1939 (photo without drawings) - Second edition 1942 - Third edition 1949 Produced by Knoll - Fourth edition 1950 Produced by Slica di Recco - Fifth edition referring to the drawings of 12/04/1954 and 12/01/1955. The structural solution of this armchair is built starting from two sides with a trestle pattern, joined together by crosspieces. The upper element of the stand, which acts as an armrest, protruding overhang joins the other side, with a crossbar to support the backrest; among the other crosspieces placed in the center of the stand, the rear one acts as a fixing point for the seat surface and the front one as a free support, on which the seat can flex and slide according to the load carried.

First edition 1939 (photo without drawings) - Second edition 1942 - Third edition 1949 Produced by Knoll - Fourth edition 1950 Produced by Slica di Recco - Fifth edition referring to the drawings of 12/04/1954 and 12/01/1955. The structural solution of this armchair is built starting from two sides with a trestle pattern, joined together by crosspieces. The upper element of the stand, which acts as an armrest, protruding overhang joins the other side, with a crossbar to support the backrest; among the other crosspieces placed in the center of the stand, the rear one acts as a fixing point for the seat surface and the front one as a free support, on which the seat can flex and slide according to the load carried.

1951 (first version presented in the “Furniture” section for E.N.A.P.I. at the IX Triennale) 1951-52 (second version with the modification of the easel that allows the sliding of the seat that allows two inclinations). At the 9th Milan Triennale Franco Albini presents a series of furnishings commissioned by La Rinascente, including two armchairs in rattan and cane, which will become respectively Gala and Margherita in the production of Vittorio Bonacina. Their light self-supporting structure is an exemplary homage to the tradition of folk crafts, that of basket makers. Albini uses a refined engineering device of a tensile structure to give life to the original principle, thus being able to create an aerial form of seating that is not based on the concept of a structure to be covered, but rather makes the covering itself a structural system.

At the 9th Milan Triennale Franco Albini presents a series of furnishings commissioned by La Rinascente, including two armchairs in rattan and cane, which will become respectively Gala and Margherita in the production of Vittorio Bonacina. Their light self-supporting structure is an exemplary homage to the tradition of folk crafts, that of basket makers. Albini uses a refined engineering device of a tensile structure to give life to the original principle, thus being able to create an aerial form of seating that is not based on the concept of a structure to be covered, but rather makes the covering itself a structural system.

The theme of the curved tube, which in this case becomes an "infinite" handrail, introduces us to what probably represented one of the most interesting projects on the relationship between "design" and "interiors" created by Albini, namely the "furniture" system. for the stations of Line 1 of the Milanese Metro (1962-1964), designed with Franca Helg, Antonio Piva and with graphics by Bob Noorda. On this project for an architectural interior on an urban scale, the problem was to involve masses of users in various directions and with the minimum of friction and dispersion. Handrails and functional equipment are suspended from their anonymity, transformed into signals and detached with extreme clarity and elegance from the wall, to act as the supporting lines of a very sharp design, which marks a precise formation and spatial modulation, like a trace that defines and multiplies the spaces.