Showroom

Cassina

Founded 1927. The I Maestri collection carries licensed work by Le Corbusier and Charlotte Perriand alongside contemporary pieces.

Cassina has held the licences to a good deal of twentieth century furniture since 1964, when it began the I Maestri programme, and the East 56th Street showroom is where that catalogue is seen in New York.

I Maestri is the reason to go. Le Corbusier, Charlotte Perriand and Pierre Jeanneret are made here under licence from the estates, along with Rietveld, Mackintosh and Frank Lloyd Wright. These are authorised production rather than reissue in the loose sense, drawn from the original documents and carrying the house mark and a number. A designer specifying an LC4 or a Perriand shelf unit is choosing between this and the secondary market, and the difference is provenance, availability and a guarantee rather than shape.

The contemporary collection sits alongside, Urquiola and Dordoni among others, and it is the part of the floor that changes.

The showroom is open without an appointment. What is worth doing on site is sitting in the historic pieces, because several of them are less comfortable than their photographs suggest and a client who has only seen images will discover that after delivery rather than before.

The practical use of the licence is authentication. Authorised pieces carry the Cassina mark, the designer's signature and a serial number, usually stamped into the frame or a leg, so a client arriving with a vintage LC2 from a dealer can be checked in a minute. Anything unmarked is either pre licence production or a copy, and the difference shows up when the piece is insured or resold rather than when it is delivered.