As Eleonore Peduzzi Riva (*1936) has little interest in attending an academic secondary school, she applies, against her father’s wishes, to the FFI specialist course in interior design at the School of Applied Arts in Basel and is accepted. She quickly acquires the necessary craft skills and learns technical drawing. The pioneering architect Paul Artaria is an important role model for her. After taking over as head of the FFI in 1947, he develops a new curriculum and opens the programme to women.

After two semesters, Eleonore Peduzzi Riva leaves the FFI. She is drawn to Milan, where the education and atmosphere are – as she herself puts it – culturally more open and progressive. She enrols as an auditing student in architecture at the Politecnico di Milano and in stage design at the Accademia di Brera. After a year, she returns to Basel to complete her studies before immediately returning to Italy.

While working for the Italian architect Leonardo Fiori, she meets her first husband, the civil engineer Sandro Riva. Together they establish Studio Riva, which offers a broad range of services – from furniture design and consultancy to the planning of infrastructure projects. From 1970 to 1971, Guido Berger works at their studio.

In 2023, Eleonore Peduzzi Riva receives long-overdue recognition with the Swiss Grand Prix Design, awarded by the Federal Office of Culture in Bern.

In 2025, VSI.ASAI names Eleonore Peduzzi Riva an Honorary Member.

Eleonore Peduzzi Riva’s career is shaped by the modernist movement of post-war Milan. Early in her career, she also designs her own products, invariably in response to interior design commissions, as she is unable to find affordable furniture on the market that reflects the spirit of the time. Her first furniture system is the lightweight metal series Lega Leggera from 1962, developed in collaboration with the renowned Milanese manufacturers Bernini and Cassina.

While designing the spherical Vacuna table lamp for Artemide, she comes to realise that a good product can only be created by drawing on the expertise of specialists from different fields. In the case of Vacuna, this means working with the Vistosi glassworks in Murano. The modular DS-600 sofa, developed for the Swiss furniture company de Sede AG, is likewise created in collaboration with the then equally young designers Klaus Vogt, Heinz Ulrich and Ueli Berger.

During the years of Italy’s post-war economic boom, Eleonore Peduzzi Riva knows all the key figures on the design scene. Over time, her work gradually shifts away from designing herself towards consulting and connecting people. Following the death of entrepreneur Fernando De Padova, she becomes a close confidante and adviser to his young widow, Maddalena De Padova. As a consulente – the term Eleonore Peduzzi Riva uses to describe herself – she spends 50 years overseeing the development of designs by renowned designers for De Padova, guiding them through to production readiness.

Beyond this, she plays a significant role in shaping the company’s positioning, communication and aesthetic direction. Mediation, networking and strategic consulting thus become central to her work – activities that extend beyond the conventional understanding of design and gain increasing importance amid the economic and social changes of the post-war period.

Eleonore Peduzzi Riva also assists Elio Fiorucci with the design of stores for his fashion label Fiorucci. By improving the lighting in the first store in Milan’s San Babila district and developing a new modular shopfitting system, she creates an effective setting for Fiorucci’s flamboyant, colourful fashion and helps turn it into a must-have among young people at the time.

As an interior designer, she designs numerous trade fair stands and showrooms, while also working for private clients. In historic Milanese apartments, she sometimes completely reorganises the floor plans to adapt them to modern ways of living.