Occasional wood and metal table designed by Nino Zoncada

Giovanni "Nino" Zoncada

Italian furniture designer

Giovanni “Nino” Zoncada (born, 1898, Venice–died 1988) was an Italian furniture designer. He graduated from the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia and worked extensively designing furniture and interiors for luxury ships. As with other important Italian designers, such as Gio Ponti, Gustavo Pulitzer-Finale, Paolo de Poli, Pietro Chiesa, and Gino Sarfatti, among others, Nino Zoncada was involved in many interior and furniture design projects for ocean liners.

Zoncada began his career in 1923 when he started working at the interior and furnishing department of the shipyard Cantiere Navale Triestino in Monfalcone. He would become one of its directors by the end of the 1930s. In the late 1940s, Nino Zoncada collaborated with Gio Ponti in the interior design of the cruise liners Conte Biancamano and Conte Grande. read more

In addition to designing almost the entire fleet of Italian cruise liner Costa Crociere during the 1940s and 1950s, Zoncada either designed or contributed to almost every major transatlantic Italian liner between the 1950s and 1960s, including the Giulio Cesare, Augusto, Andrea Doria, Critoforo Colombo, Leonardo da Vinci, and Stella Solaris ships.

His furniture collections were distributed in the U.S. by Altamira New York. Among his most famous furniture designs are his iconic and richly upholstered lounge chairs with relatively high and curved arm rests and his portable wooden tables with marble bases.

Last updated: March 22, 2019

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