Riva1920: Sculpting Time, Timber, and Integrity
Riva1920 is a workshop where timber carries memory. Founded more than a century ago in Cantù — the Lombard town synonymous with Italian woodworking — the atelier has remained a family endeavour across four generations. Its philosophy is quiet and enduring: to give form to wood in a way that honours its origin, preserves its integrity, and allows it to gain eloquence over time.
Solid timber is both subject and teacher here. Canaletto walnut, cedar, oak, and maple are chosen for their character; ancient Kauri, drawn from New Zealand swamps after 50,000 years, is shaped into monumental tables whose grain reads like history. Venetian briccole — oak posts once embedded in the lagoon — are reborn as cabinetry, carrying the marks of water and tide. At Riva1920, wood is never disguised; knots, cracks, and variations are treated as part of its truth, each piece a record of growth and endurance.
The workshop remains rooted in Brianza’s culture of making. Skilled hands plane, join, and finish every slab, guided by an instinct for balance and proportion. Timber bends to the curve of a bench, responds to the chisel’s edge, accepts oils that deepen its colour and release its scent. Machines are present but never dominant — they prepare, support, refine. What defines the work is the patience of artisans, shaping material with the certainty that time is an ally rather than an enemy.
Collaboration has always been part of the atelier’s rhythm. Architects and designers — from Bartoli Design to Matteo Thun — bring concepts that the grain itself helps resolve. Some ideas result in icons: a Kauri dining table that feels carved from geological time; a cedar bench that balances mass with levity. Each design carries the dual authorship of maker and material, where invention is checked by timber’s own intelligence.
Riva1920’s furniture inhabits interiors with a sense of permanence. In alpine retreats, urban penthouses, and cultural spaces, its tables, benches, and cabinets bring with them an atmosphere of stillness. They are pieces that absorb light across their surfaces, release fragrance with the change of seasons, and remind inhabitants that to live with wood is to live with time itself.
To encounter Riva1920 is to experience an ethic as much as an aesthetic. The work reflects continuity between nature and culture, between family and craft, between centuries past and futures yet to be lived. Each piece is both anchor and witness — timber shaped for function, but always resonant with meaning.
