Cesare Leonardi (Modena, 1935-2021) graduated from the Faculty of Architecture in Florence in 1970. Franca Stagi (1937-2008) graduated from the Milan Polytechnic in 1962. Together they ran a professional studio in Modena from 1963 to 1983, which established itself in the creation of design objects in fibreglass such as the Nastro and Dondolo armchairs, published in design magazines and books and part of the permanent collections of the world’s most important museums: MoMA in New York, Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein. Between 1970 and 1980 the studio worked on architecture, parks and collective structures (schools, sports centres, cemeteries) designed in close relationship with trees and greenery.
The Architect Cesare Leonardi Archive was founded in 2010 with the aim of protecting and disseminating the work of Cesare Leonardi. A project to reorder and catalogue the materials has been underway since 2015. Franca Stagi’s Archive was donated by her family to the ‘Luigi Poletti’ Art Library in Modena, where it was reordered and inventoried in 2011.