For fifty years Flos has created objects of light and ignites generations of dreams, it was born in 1962 in Merano by the will of Dino Gavina, genius of Italian design and great discoverer of talents.
For Flos, light is the material with which to express new ideas and illuminate unexplored emotions.
The company philosophy can be summarized in these passages: “We write the future, reading our past and expressing today, in a continuity of concrete challenges and bold choices that have shaped our image and identity. Our history has taught us to keep the fire of provocation alive with the search for new poetics of functionality ”
Following instinct has always allowed Flos to create products that become icons, invent types and set new archetypes.
The design paths are many: to identify with the masters of design, such as the Castiglioni or Gino Sarfatti brothers, who sign some of the most famous design lamps in the world such as Arco, Taccia, Toio …, but also to continuously discover new talents. In fact, all the most interesting personalities in the world of design collaborate or have collaborated with Flos: from Philippe Starck to Marcel Wanders, from Jasper Morrison to the Bouroullec brothers, from Michael Anastasiades to Nendo to name just a few. The strengths of the brand, which always place it at the forefront, are manifold, among them, a rare element for a contemporary design company: having great technical and technological authority and being part of mass culture.
Experimentation has allowed Flos to adopt revolutionary materials, such as in the past the cocoon, with which it developed the first lamps of the Castiglioni brothers, and more advanced technological solutions, represented today by OLED and sustainable materials.
Precisely for these reasons, inventing new languages ??around light means for the company to indicate new aesthetics and freedom of life, never forgetting, in the lamps of yesterday and today, to take seriously game and irony.
On the fine line that divides and unites art from design, artisanal production from industrial production, the limited series from the large-scale one, the individual’s thought from the collective one: This is where Flos is and it is there that we can find it. The Flos catalog is divided into different sectors to satisfy all the needs regarding light: a decorative part, including home lamps designed by the most famous designers, a technical part, for high-definition lighting systems for public spaces, and finally a part dedicated outside to illuminate, according to the same aesthetic and technical characteristics, terraces, gardens, swimming pools, streets, squares …
Molteni
Molteni & C was founded as a craft company in 1934 in Giussano in the province of Milan (later in the province of Monza and Brianza), by Angelo Molteni, a businessman from Brianza, among the promoters of the Milan International Furniture Fair, which will see its first edition in 1961 In the first post-war period the company made furniture starting from the trunk and covering all the production phases and in the mid-1950s it participated in the first “Selective Exhibition – International Furniture Competition” in Cantù, with a project by the Swiss architect Werner Blaser, a pupil by Alvar Aalto and assistant to Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who wins first prize. The chest of drawers, with the triple fork geometric joint, is the first prototype of modern furniture and has recently been reworked in a precious numbered and certified edition.
1968 is the year of the revolution: in a few months, production is converted from classic to modern, to create well-designed furniture, designed for the series; Luca Meda, a pupil of the Ulm School, is the man of the revolution, his Iride containers presented at the Salone del Mobile in 1968. The following year the complete conversion to design furniture took place, followed by the purchase of the Unifor companies and Citterio, in the office sector and, in 1979, of Dada, a kitchen furniture company. Over the years Molteni & C therefore becomes a reality for the production of furniture.
During the artistic direction entrusted to Luca Meda, the architects Aldo Rossi and Afra and Tobia Scarpa are called to design for Molteni; Aldo Rossi will design some now iconic furnishings such as the theater sofa, the weekly Carteggio and the Milano chair, rare examples of the Maestro’s forays into the world of design.
In the 1990s, however, collaboration began with some Italian and international designers, including Jean Nouvel, Foster and Partners, Patricia Urquiola, Rodolfo Dordoni, Hannes Wettstein.
In 1994 Molteni & C received the Compasso d’Oro for Lifetime Achievement. “Among the protagonists of the Italian furniture culture”, says the jury, “he has been able to present an offer of products designed with constant dignity, safe quality and a broad vision of the cultural context”. In the same year Jean Nouvel designed the Fondation Cartier in Paris, Molteni created all the furnishings through Uniforo: thus the Less series was born, an icon of design in the world, tables with minimal thickness and with elementary and rigorous shapes.
In early 2000 To support international expansion, Molteni & C created the Padded division and, in a few years, established itself among the best international manufacturers with the projects of Patricia Urquiola, Ferruccio Laviani, Rodolfo Dordoni, Hannes Wettstein and Ron Gilad and many others.
In 2012 Molteni & C presented the Gio Ponti Collection at the Salone del Mobile, furnishings never mass produced by the great Milanese architect, in collaboration with Gio Ponti Archives. The collaboration between Molteni and Gio Ponti’s heirs continues annually thanks to an exclusive agreement for the rights of the Maestro’s projects.
The Molteni Group recently celebrated 80 years of activity with an exhibition at the Modern Art Gallery in Milan, entitled 80! Molteni. With an installation curated by Jasper Morrison and the graphic project by Studio Cerri & Associati, prototypes and furnishings from all the companies of the Group recount, for the first time, 80 years of experience, quality and innovation. The exhibition has become the core of the Molteni Museum in Giussano.
As of April 2016, Belgian architect and designer Vincent Van Duysen has been appointed creative director of the Molteni & C brands; after the success of the Gliss Master collection of wardrobes, the new collaboration focuses on coordinating the image and the design and artistic choices of the group.
Born as a company specialized in the production of systems, today the company still fully produces in Italy an integral offer for the home, from containers to upholstered items, from chairs to tables … flanked by a contract division that manufactures cruise ships, theaters , museums, hotels, restaurants and collective residences.
Moooi
For 20 years now, Moooi has inspired and seduced the world of design with sparkling, innovative, ironic and courageous projects.
The Dutch company was founded in 2001 by Marcel Wanders and Casper Vissers initially to propose the projects of Marcel Wanders himself, who in the 90s made himself known to the famous Dutch collective of designers Droog Design mainly thanks to his knitted chair, Knotted Chair, later edited by Cappellini; Wanders’ designs are often too original for design companies, so this publishing house is founded in order to maintain its independence and creativity intact: Moooi which means “beautiful” in Dutch.
Marcel Wanders’ capricious, unique and provocative style is fully expressed in the Moooi collection. In addition to the creations designed by Marcel himself, Moooi also edits other well-known designers such as Bertjan Pot, Jasper Morrison. Ross Lovegrove, Studio Job… enriching the catalog every year with always surprising pieces.
The company does not hesitate to leave the usual and aesthetic paths of design by editing unusual and courageous creations such as the surprising spider-shaped chandelier, composed of a multitude of technical desk lamps and called Dear Ingo in tribute to the Master of light Ingo Maurer , created by Ron Gilad in 2003 or even the “charred” Smoke wooden armchair from 2002 by Maarten Bass, who later became one of the most acclaimed Dutch designers.
In this way, the Moooi collection easily combines a suspension in pressed white paper by the creative couple Studio Job and a life-size black horse wearing a lamp on its head, a project signed by the Swedish studio Front Design and part of a particularly iconic collection completed from a rabbit_lampada and a pig-table.
Many designers are now called to collaborate with the company, always under the artistic direction of Marcel Wanders, now sought after by all the most important international design companies, from Flos to Baccarat, from Cappellini to Alessi; recent collaborations include those with Jaime Hayon, Nika Zuoanc, Joost van Bleiswijk.
Moooi’s style has not changed since the beginning and has remained exclusive, bold, playful … based on the belief that design is a matter of love, irony and joy. They are timeless objects, which possess the uniqueness and character of antiques combined with the freshness of modern times. This merger leads the brand to focus more and more on the production of iconic and spectacular objects.
With this unique and iconic mix of lighting, furniture and accessories, the company creates interior spaces decorated with a variety of inspiration of models and colors to embrace any type of space, domestic and public, and makes people of different ages, cultures fall in love and personality.
This vision of unexpected home always highlights new ideas with a clever touch of magic. Behind the apparent irony and playfulness there are always intelligent projects, the result of continuous reflections on the way of living and living and its continuous changes.