Lina Bo Bardi's Chair Is at Design Miami This Year

Lina Bo Bardi designed the Cadeira SESC Pompeia in 1982 for the SESC Pompeia cultural center in Sao Paulo — a former barrel factory that she transformed into one of the most celebrated adaptive reuse projects in architectural history. The chair, developed with Sao Paulo workshop Marcenaria Barauna, is a direct expression of her philosophy: that design should be democratic, durable, and rooted in the material culture of the place where it is made.

ESPASSO, the gallery specializing in rare Brazilian design from mid-century to contemporary, is bringing seven seminal works by Bo Bardi to Design Miami 2026. The Cadeira SESC Pompeia is among them. This is not a reproduction. This is the work itself — a piece of furniture that is also a piece of architectural history, shown in a context that allows you to understand both.

Bo Bardi was born in Rome in 1914 and emigrated to Brazil in 1946. She spent the rest of her life there, designing buildings, furniture, exhibitions, and stage sets that drew on Brazilian vernacular culture while engaging seriously with the European modernist tradition she had trained in. The SESC Pompeia project, completed in 1982, is considered her masterwork — a building that is simultaneously a sports complex, a cultural center, and a meditation on what public space can be.

The chair she designed for it shares those qualities. It is simple, almost severe, made from materials that are honest about what they are. It does not try to be beautiful in the conventional sense. It tries to be right — to be the correct object for the space and the people who would use it. That is a different ambition, and it is one that Design Miami, at its best, is equipped to honor.

ESPASSO's presentation at Design Miami 2026 is one of the strongest reasons to visit the gallery program this year. The fair runs December 1-6 at Convention Center Drive & 19th Street, Miami Beach, concurrent with Art Basel Miami Beach.