Brionvega
Design radios and TVs, icons of Italian industrial design since 1945
Brionvega has not been in the founding family's hands since 1992 and has changed owners several times. Current production focuses on limited edition re-editions. This is first and foremost a design brand, not a hi-fi brand: don't expect audio performance comparable to dedicated audio manufacturers. You're buying a museum piece, not an amplifier.
Philosophy
Icons of 1960s-70s Italian industrial design, carefully re-edited. Zanuso, Sapper, Castiglioni. Limited editions, made in Italy.
History
Milan, 1945. Giuseppe Brion leaves Phonola and Radiomarelli with one fixed idea: manufacturing electronic components in a country in ruins. With engineer Leone Pajetta and his wife Onorina Tomasin-Brion, he founds B.P.M. Radio. Post-war Italy needs everything, including radios. The small company becomes Vega BP Radio in the 1950s, lands a contract with RAI in 1954 and produces the first Italian television sets. In 1962, the Doney 14 arrives: Europe's first portable transistor television, designed with unprecedented formal boldness. Compasso d'Oro in 1963. That same year, the company takes its definitive name: Brionvega.
That's when everything shifts. Brion has the intuition to entrust his products to the greatest designers of the era. Marco Zanuso and Richard Sapper design the TS 502 in 1964, the "radiocubo" - an ABS cube that opens in two like a seashell. The same year, the Algol, a tilted portable television designed to be watched even placed on the floor, wins gold at the Ljubljana Biennale. In 1965, Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni create the RR 126, a modular radiogram that redefines what an audio piece of furniture can be, and the Totem stereo. A second Compasso d'Oro in 1970 crowns the entire production. Mario Bellini takes over in the 70s-80s, then Ettore Sottsass. You could, wrote Alba Cappellieri in Domus, tell the entire history of post-war Italian industrial design through Brionvega products alone.
The pieces enter MoMA, the Centre Pompidou, the V&A, the Cooper Hewitt. But the company doesn't survive globalization. In 1992, the Brion family sells to Sèleco. A saga of acquisitions follows - Industrie Formenti in 1998, bankruptcy in 2004, then other hands still. Today, from Pordenone, Brionvega produces limited re-editions of its 60s-70s classics, handcrafted in Italy to original specifications. The Radiofonografo is sold at the MoMA Design Store. It's a heritage brand more than an industrial manufacturer, but what heritage.
Iconic Products
TS 502 Radiocubo
The cube. Designed by Zanuso and Sapper in 1964, an ABS radio that opens in two like a seashell. Gold medal at Ljubljana, German Gute Form award, MoMA permanent collection. The purest gesture of Italian industrial design - an entire radio in a 13cm cube.
RR 126 Radiofonografo
The Castiglioni brothers' radiofonografo (1965). Two modular blocks containing radio, amplifier and turntable, set on a single-piece cast aluminum stand. Re-issued today to original specifications, hand-lacquered. Sold at MoMA Design Store.
Algol TV
Zanuso and Sapper's tilted portable television (1964). Its leaning organic form allows viewing even when placed on the floor. Gold medal at the Ljubljana Biennale, exhibited at MoMA, the Museum of Hamburg and São Paulo. Re-issued in limited edition.