Bar Basso: A Milanese Cocktail Bar's Design Legacy

Maurizio Stocchetto, owner of Bar Basso in Milan, recounts the bar's history and its unique relationship with design. Founded in 1933 by Giuseppe Basso, the bar reopened in 1947 at Via Plinio 39, run by Mirko Stocchetto and Renato Hausamann. It democratized cocktail culture, moving drinks from luxury hotel lounges to a neighborhood bar. The bar's specially made glasses, produced by a pharmaceutical glassware company, later attracted designers like James Irvine, Marc Newson, Jasper Morrison, Konstantin Grcic, Thomas Eriksson, and Emmanuel Babled in the 1980s. In the early 1990s, companies like Alessi and Baccarat began producing cocktail glasses based on designs by these same designers. Stocchetto started working at the bar in 1967, postponed military service, and spent two years in California, returning to a Milan transformed by industrial design. A secret party for 150 guests organized by James Irvine drew about 1,000 people, including Simon Le Bon, marking a turning point. The bar's website, designed by Actant Visuelle and Stocchetto, hosts online exhibitions from its archive. For Salone 2016, the bar launched "1 Cocktail," inviting twenty international designers to create a free-drink for a hypothetical party. Photographer Delfino Sisto Legnani's cocktail portraits are featured on the site.