Installation Archives

Double event with Foscarini at Milan Design Week 2025: join us at Euroluce, Fiera Milano, and explore our showroom Foscarini Spazio Monforte.

From April 8 to 13, 2025, Foscarini returns to Milan Design Week with a dual presence at Euroluce in Fiera Milano Rho (HALL 4, BOOTH C03 – C05) and at the Fuorisalone in our Spazio Monforte showroom. Two complementary experiences, curated by Ferruccio Laviani, that explore lighting innovation in different ways through creative installations and new lamp designs, the result of collaborations with various designers—some already part of our journey, others working with Foscarini for the first time.

Our Spazio Monforte showroom will host “CAOS PERFETTO – Scratched Stories of Light”, a site-specific installation by artist Bennet Pimpinella, alongside an exhibition dedicated to the editorial project “What’s in a lamp?”. This initiative invites international artists and content creators to reinterpret, in their unique styles, the thoughts, sensations, and emotions evoked by Foscarini’s lamps.

Register here to visit CAOS PERFETTO – Scratched Stories of Light, the What’s in a lamp? exhibition, and get a first look at our new lamps.

Join us at Bloomingdale’s for an immersive celebration of Italian design and craftsmanship, curated by Ferruccio Laviani. The event highlights iconic pieces, including Foscarini’s renowned Orbital lamp, showcasing the best of Italian design.

Discover Orbital lamp

From September 5 to 29, 2024, Bloomingdale’s in New York City will host a special exhibition dedicated to Italian design, in collaboration with Salone del Mobile.Milano, the world-renowned design fair, bringing a unique celebration of Italian creativity and craftsmanship to the heart of the Big Apple. The centerpiece of this event is an immersive exhibition titled “Italian Design: from Classic to Contemporary,” curated by the architect Ferruccio Laviani.

Inspired by the metaphysical squares of Giorgio de Chirico, the Italian painter known for his enigmatic, dream-like cityscapes characterized by eerie shadows and classical architecture, the exhibition creates a fantastical setting where classic design meets contemporary innovation. Laviani’s design for the space masterfully blends elements of art installation and pop-up experience, using light and unexpected object placements to create a surprising and evocative atmosphere.

“I added a contemporary and radical touch to the graphic language of the set. By merging influences from the 1960s radical design movement with the metaphysical elements of De Chirico, we’ve crafted a space that is both distinctive and modern. I selected the design objects to be displayed, such as the Orbital lamp, from the catalogs of the most representative Made in Italy brands – pieces which have become icons of everyday life, are therefore worthy of being displayed as works of art.”

FERRUCCIO LAVIANI
/ Designer

In addition to the installation, the event will offer a series of engaging talks and activities featuring prominent figures from the international design scene. These events provide a wonderful opportunity for the New York design community and enthusiasts to explore the rich heritage and innovative spirit of Italian design.

5 – 29 September 2024
H. 10AM – 8PM
Bloomingdale’s 59th Street
1000 Third Ave, New York, NY
6th Floor – Home/Furnishing department

Experience the fusion of craftsmanship and creativity at Foscarini setup during 3 Days of Design Copenhagen, Northern Europe’s premier design festival. Our exhibit takes you on a journey through the workshops of master craftsmen who, in collaboration with Foscarini, transform tradition into experimentation, embodying the essence of Italian design.

Nestled in the esteemed Frederiksgade 1 in the Marmorkirken district, Foscarini’s setup, curated by Ferruccio Laviani, celebrates 40 years of craftsmanship and experimental design. It features recent product introductions by designers Andrea Anastasio, Rodolfo Dordoni, Ludovica Serafini + Roberto Palomba, and Danish designer Felicia Arvid, making her debut in the world of lighting.

This setting offers a local window to a global audience, showcasing Foscarini’s approach to design. Throughout our history, we have consistently challenged the limits of materials and technologies, aiming to make people feel at home in any space and contributing to design history with decorative lamps that are universally recognized as icons.

Visitors at Foscarini’s space in Frederiksgade 1 will have the opportunity to view the new Hoba collection, designed by Ludovica Serafini + Roberto Palomba, with its unexpected irregular shape in hand-blown glass. Also on display is the highly decorative Fregio suspension lamp, made with ceramic bas-reliefs and designed by Andrea Anastasio, crafted in collaboration with the historical Gatti workshop in Faenza. Additionally, guests can explore Pli, the sinuous suspension lamp crafted in paper or wood by Danish designer Felicia Arvid.

Alongside these new releases are best-selling pieces like the Aplomb lamp, made of concrete and designed by Lucidi Pevere. Visitors will also appreciate the timeless beauty of the blown glass pieces designed by the Italian master Rodolfo Dordoni, including the beloved Buds and Nile table lamps, as well as the new portable lamp Fleur and the elegant table lamp Chapeaux.

Join us at Frederiksgade 1 from June 12-14.

At the Milan Design Week 2024, a video installation by Francesco Meneghini unveils the latest version of the SPOKES AMBIENT lamp designed by Garcia/Cumini.

A scenographic tunnel that captivates the gaze, a choreography of video, music, and light highlights the innovative feature of Spokes Ambient compared to the original design: personal management of the lighting effect. Thanks to the two independent and dimmable LED sources, with Spokes Ambient, it’s now possible to adjust the illumination according to your needs and preferences: the upward-facing source illuminates the environment with reflected light, while the downward-facing one illuminates the work surface. Lightweight volumes that contain the light and project a kaleidoscope of lights and shadows.

“We observe a flow of landscapes that defy the ordinary, a sequence of desert scenarios, punctuated by the slow wave of elevator horizons that seem to almost breathe. In the intersection of these interpenetrating images, the visitor travels while listening to the pulsation of an unprecedented cosmos. This is light that transforms, that narrates, that invites to get lost in a silent expansion. Foscarini, with this installation, not only illuminates but plays a visual melody for the eyes”.

FRANCESCO MENEGHINI
/ Director and Video Maker

Design, art and experiments with craftsmanship: Foscarini presents HABITUS, a new research project that takes shape in an exhibition and talks about the privilege of absolute creative freedom.

At Foscarini Spazio Monforte during Milan Design Week 2024, Foscarini presents a new research project blending art, design, and lighting. Along the lines of the Battiti initiative in 2022, HABITUS is a work of pure research: a project that moves in the space of possibilities between the idea and the product, in which Foscarini freely comes to terms with creativity, granting itself the possibility of exploring different directions in the world of lighting, without heeding the limits logically imposed by serial production.

The experimental project HABITUS, in collaboration with the artist and designer Andrea Anastasio, ventures into the territories of fine tailoring and embroidery of Arun Jothi and Natalie Frost, the creative talents of Amal, who develop the refined and often daring decorations on haute couture garments, in India and Rome. Beads, sequins and strips of laser-cut PET are the materials with which Foscarini has come to grips, to observe the reactions of light when the curiosity of Anastasio associates it with their iridescent and unpredictable textures.

“For a company, it is a true privilege to be able to take the time to reflect, to weave connections and attempt creative incursions into other worlds. It is also a natural choice, for us: getting out of our comfort zone is a part of who we are.”

CARLO URBINATI
/ PRESIDENT AND FOUNDER OF FOSCARINI

The pieces that compose the HABITUS exhibition, which can be visited at Foscarini Spazio Monforte from April 16th to 30th, 2024, are not lamps; they are made by an artist by combining the know-how of a company with the refined skills of an atelier.

E-BOOK

HABITUS —
Foscarini Artbook series #2
Research & Developement

Download the exclusive e-book ‘Foscarini Artbook series — Habitus’ to delve deeper into this free exploration that combines the know-how of a company and the craftsmanship of an atelier, to imagine new expressive languages, meanings, and ways of experiencing light. Critical insights by Carlo Urbinati, Andrea Anastasio, and Kassia St. Clair. Photographs by Massimo Gardone and Karan Kumar Sachdev.

Download the booklet

Location
Foscarini Spazio Monforte
Corso Monforte 19 – Milan

Opening hours
16 – 21 April
10:00 – 20:00

Chiaroscura takes center stage in the site-specific installation “Luce Scalare” on the grand staircase of Triennale Milano, leading to the exhibition ‘Alberto Meda: Tension and Lightness’ that explores some of the compositional and methodological characteristics of the Italian maestro.

Discover Chiaroscura

For the exhibition “Alberto Meda: Tension and Lightness”, held at Triennale Milano as a tribute to the great Italian engineer and designer, on view from October 6, 2023 to March 24, 2024, Foscarini has produced – based on a project by Meda himself – a site-specific installation for the grand staircase of the Triennale, featuring 34 CHIAROSCURA lamps – 17 on each side of the steps – all made to measure, from the largest with a height of over five metres (552 cm), to the smallest with a height of just 57 centimetres. A luminous set with differentiated dimming to create a choreography.

“When the curator Marco Sammicheli asked me to think about an on-site installation for the Scalone d’Onore of Triennale Milano, as part of my solo exhibition, I made a quick visit to the location and discovered that the lateral walls of the staircase are not continuous, but are made with marble columns having a triangular section, separated at a distance of 10 cm. The spaces between one column and the next have different heights, from a level of about 5 metres at the start of the staircase, and of about 50 cm at the last step, before reaching the mezzanine. I liked the idea of an intervention that would respect the architecture, inserted in a discreet way to enhance it, so I thought light might be the solution. Hiding the luminous parts in the gaps between the columns seemed like a plausible idea. So I thought about Chiaroscura, the luminator with a triangular section, like the columns, which I designed for Foscarini with my son Francesco, and about its characteristic construction, made by using extrusions of aluminium and methacrylate, thus permitting different lengths, even to a maximum of 6 metres. The technology of extrusion and its intrinsic freedom of sizing suggested the idea of making a ‘scalar’ set that emits light from its three faces, on the staircase but also on the two steps that lead down to the theatre. It seemed interesting to give the set another dimension as well, a dynamic luminous dimension, so with Foscarini we have formulated an electronic solution to achieve this effect”.

ALBERTO MEDA
/ engineer, designer and planner

An example of Foscarini’s ability to respond to the specific needs of architects and interior designers, CHIAROSCURA embodies the innovative character of the brand. A light that stems from the contemporary world, with a distinctive personality relying on the particular luminous effect, and the original rapport between form and function.

Designed by Alberto with his son Francesco, CHIAROSCURA is the contemporary reinterpretation of the classic luminator. Striking in its simple presence and capable of emitting light at 360°, CHIAROSCURA is the result of a design challenge: to explore the possibility of boosting the functionality of the classic luminator, which emits only upward indirect light. The elegant and light body, totally lit and no longer simply producing light, was the goal that guided the definition of the form, the choice of the materials and the production technologies.

Together with Foscarini, the Medas have expanded the lamp’s functioning, creating a triangular structure in extruded aluminium, equipped with LEDs: a “cage” inside which an extrusion in opaline plastic has been placed to spread the light. Unlike classic luminators, CHIAROSCURA thus offers ambient lighting at the sides and an indirect glow on the ceiling.
The slender and visually light body of CHIAROSCURA and its warm, welcoming light make the lamp versatile, ready to bring its own discreet personality, enhancing different settings, from residences to contract projects and offices.

For special design needs and upon request, Chiaroscura is a lamp which can be realised at different heights compared to the standard version available in the catalogue.

An immersive installation at Foscarini Spazio Monforte and a colorful and essential stand at Euroluce: two destinations at Milan Design Week to discover the new collections by Foscarini. New light ideas with a central focus on the brand’s design freedom driven by experimentation.

Long-term collaborations that move forward along with new partnerships, experimentation on shapes and materials, with a constant emphasis on the product and the expressive possibilities offered by various types of workmanship. During Milan Design Week 2023, Foscarini presents the new collections inside the updated framework of Euroluce (pav.11 – stand 106) and the FuoriSalone at Foscarini Spazio Monforte, with two installations created by Ferruccio Laviani.

/ (IM)POSSIBLE NATURES: a wild garden takes over Spazio Monforte

The installation (IM)POSSIBLE NATURES – designed by Ferruccio Laviani – is one of the go-to destinations of Milan Design Week 2023. An immersive installation where a natural world – made up of grass, herbs, and uncultivated plants – seems to have taken over. Visitors are invited to actively participate in the experience by getting carried away by imagination to an almost dreamlike context. In the middle the space: FREGIO, the new lamp designed by Andrea Anastasio. All around it: the greenery. An unexpected urban oasis within the frenzy of Milan Design Week. A space where human craftsmanship and the beauty of nature merge.

/ EUROLUCE 2023 — Hall 11 Stand 106

Euroluce 2023 will be very different from the previous ones, with a complete rethinking of the layout of the light fair based on a project by Lombardini 22. A loop-shaped plan will optimise routes taking into the pavillions elementsthat are typical of city spaces to foster the creation networks and community. An ideal city, enriched by interdisciplinary and experiential cultural content, exhibitions, talks, workshops and installations. Foscarini will present the product novelties in a stand designed by Ferruccio Laviani. Colorful, essential, functional: the layout is conceived to give full visibility and properly showcase each of the new models.

HALL 11 | STAND 106
18— 23 April 2023
H 9.30/18.30

Not only product: Foscarini participates in the schedule of cultural activities at Salone del Mobile 2023 with a special workshop that investigates light, Italian design and the craftsmanship behind the creation of some of the most beloved products in the collection.

Workshop | Shedding Light on Mastery
Exploring the Art and Craftsmanship of Foscarini
HALL 15 | Area Workshop
20 April 2023 H 16:00

/ PRODUCT NEWS

The narrative Foscarini conveys to its audience in the presentation of the new collections develops in three precise directions, all pertaining to the DNA of the company: the continuity of long-term collaborations with creatives and designers; the curiosity towards new languages and talents; and the research on materials aimed to solve project challenges and find new expressive possibilities.

Designed by Andrea Anastasio in collaboration with Bottega Gatti, FREGIO represents Foscarini’s attitude towards exploring new expressive languages in lighting design, also approaching different materials. Made of a section of a ceramic floral bas-relief, the lamp is presented as suspension and wall lamp offering light directed both downwards and upwards.

Rodolfo Dordoni presents two new projects of table lamps.

CHAPEAUX, A family of table lamps with three different diffusers of different shapes and materials (metal, blown glass, porcelain) that seem to float in the void sustained by a transparent pyrex base (image below).

And FLEUR a battery-powered wireless lamp that combines decoration and functionality: it illuminates but is also a small vase where you can put some water and a fresh flower.

Ludovica+Roberto Palomba continue their research on blown glass presenting HOBA, an organic-shaped family of lamps, asymmetric and irregular.

Foscarini also confirms its talent-scouting attitude, presenting PLI: a lamp designed by the young Danish designer Felicia Arvid, making her debut in the world of lighting.

And finally, the architects Oscar and Gabriele Buratti present ANOOR a wall and ceiling solution with a high emotional impact which plays with the two souls – technical and decorative – of light. An answer for all architects and interior designers who are looking for solutions that are at the same time decorative and functional.

A highly diversified package of novelties because each new Foscarini lamp is the result of a collaborative project that is built together, through dialogue and exchange, taking time. Giving oneself the pleasure of a process that does not disdain but welcomes error, reconsideration, and putting oneself back into play, with the goal of bringing distinctive design objects with character and meaning to the public, decorative lamps capable of transforming space, even when turned off.

At 2022 Milan Design Week Foscarini Spazio Monforte is transformed into a luxuriant Garden of Eden where new lights are revealed as objects of desire

As part of Fuori Salone 2022 Foscarini’s new products for 2022 are revealed in a fascinating installation designed by Ferruccio Laviani that redesigns and transforms the upper floor of Foscarini Spazio Monforte into a garden of Eden. De-Light Garden – the evocative name chosen for the installation – is an immersive journey in a luxuriant garden where new lights are revealed as unprecedented objects of desire for design lovers: Tonda by Laviani himself and Bridge by Francesco Meda – are the latest innovations. In the words of the designer himself, De-Light Garden plays on the theme of temptation and desire by reinterpreting the scene of Adam and Eve intent on gathering the forbidden fruit:

“Delighting means giving pleasure that’s also visual and tactile. De-light is dedicated to the subtle thread that binds us all in the overwhelming urge to possess something and the temptation we feel in desiring it. And it is precisely the temptation and pleasure that light, in all its forms, gives us that inspired me for the installation at Foscarini Spazio Monforte. When you enter you’re surrounded by the Garden of Eden and you see, as if frozen in time, the scene of Adam and Eve intent on plucking the fruit from the tree of Good and Evil, in a setting that looks like it’s straight out of a Dürer engraving. With this setup I wanted to give the idea that ‘falling into temptation’ every now and again is pleasant and that design and light also become an object of desire”.

FERRUCCIO LAVIANI
/ DESIGNER

The presentation of new products continues on the showroom’s lower floor with NILE by Rodolfo Dordoni and CHIAROSCURA by Alberto and Francesco Meda. These products, while very different and with their own identity, together confirm Foscarini’s consistently pioneering vision and its ability to constantly redefine the rules.

As further proof of Foscarini’s more experimental and innovative spirit, a great deal of space is dedicated to the research that the brand is conducting together with Andrea Anastasio on the theme of ceramics and interaction with light: Battiti.

In the project Battiti light is used not to illuminate but to construct. As if it were a material: it generates effects, underlines forms and invents shadows.

Learn more about Battiti.

An intense personality and atmospheres dominated by the colours of autumn distinguish the new outfitting designed by Ferruccio Laviani for Foscarini’s showroom in Milan. This setting brings to mind the mineral world and is the backdrop to a selection of iconic lamps.

Mounds of sand in a coordinated palette of colours embrace and frame iconic decorative design lamps, in a new display designed by Ferruccio Laviani for Foscarini Spazio Monforte.
Mineral nuances trigger atmospheres that come alive in the evening with brilliant luminous effects. An intimate, delicate concept that permeates the upper level and the windows of Foscarini’s Milan showroom.
Foscarini Spazio Monforte thus takes on a new, intense personality that becomes an ideal backdrop for a selection of creations from the Foscarini catalogue. Suspension and table lamps emerge from mounds of coloured sand, resting on opaque white cylindrical volumes.

“Of all the seasons, autumn is probably the most intimate, when nature offers us another image of its beauty, through a totally unusual range of colours. This world and this palette of hues have always attracted me, so they form the leitmotif of this new installation at Foscarini Spazio Monforte. A mineral world, narrated through mounds of sand in various tones, from terracotta to sienna, forming a background and embracing some of the most popular models in the Foscarini catalogue with their intriguing presence, illuminating the hues of a season that suggest aromas of brushwood and moss”.

FERRUCCIO LAVIANI
/ ARCHITECT

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The protagonists of the first shop window on Corso Monforte are the colourful, nonchalant Binic lamps by Ionna Vautrin, small table models that establish an immediate rapport thanks to their playful forms and intense hues. They are joined on stage by the Rituals suspension and table lamps by Ludovica + Roberto Palomba, featuring particular workmanship of blown glass with light ripples to create a warm, vibrant glow, displayed near the Buds table models by Rodolfo Dordoni, a refined collection in which blown glass is the absolute accent, accompanied by a transparent base to bring out the pure forms.
Other eye-catchers include the theatrical Big Bang suspension lamp by Vicente Garcia Jimenez and Enrico Franzolini, along with the light, dynamic Plena by Eugenio Gargioni and Guillaume Albouy, a model with particular charm, capable of completely brightening a room while retaining its soft, enveloping image.
Behind these presences, the reference to a mineral world emerges in the delicate chromatic juxtaposition of the Aplomb and Aplomb Large concrete suspension lamps by Lucidi Pevere, two offerings that combine refinement and tactile appeal, projecting a downward beam of light.
The narrative plot is completed by the purity of Gregg and the seductive grace of Gem, both by the Palomba duo, while the Mite floor lamp and the very new Mite Anniversario by Marc Sadler, new entry in 2021 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Mite’s Compasso d’Oro award, are featured in the lateral window facing Via Santa Cecilia.

The signature collection “The Light Bulb Series” developed thanks to collaboration between Foscarini and James Wines/SITE is the protagonist of the installation “REVERSE ROOM” presented during Milan Design Week 2018 at Foscarini Spazio Brera: an overturned and angled “black box” that disrupts spatial perception and challenges our reactions to the environment and conventions.

Composed of a number of carefully selected pieces, in numbered limited editions, The Light Bulb Series is a signature collection of great value for the story it tells and the thinking it conveys. It is part of wider-ranging reflections on the light bulb as an archetype, with its typical form dictated by function and by the technology available at the time, which has remained constant for decades, in spite of the fact that technical evolution now makes it possible to adapt any form to the same function.
Wines approaches these considerations through explorations that gravitate around the main themes that have guided his architectural research, based on reaction to the surrounding environment and action on it. These themes are reversal, dissolution, nature, all those states of “architectural defect” that make it possible to rethink reality, giving it form while at the same time dissolving its boundaries.

All the pieces of the series are on view at Foscarini Spazio Brera in the Reverse Room, a special installation created by James Wines with his daughter Susan Wines, designed to bring out the characteristics of surreal inversion of these variations on a theme. In a room with dark walls, overturned and angled, with monochrome tables and chairs, the suspension lamps sprout from the floor, while table lamps look down from the ceiling, challenging our perception of spaces and our response to environmental stimuli and conventions.

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“This series comes from the idea of disrupting the classic design of incandescent light bulbs, an idea that suggests a critical reflection on the absolutely non-iconic forms of modern LED lamps. The concept, implemented by Foscarini, stems from research on the spontaneous way people identify with forms and functions of everyday objects. In this case, the light bulbs merge, crack, shatter, burn out, overturning any expectations”.

JAMES WINES
/ ARCHITECT & DESIGNER

The story of the collaboration between Foscarini and James Wines unfolds across a span of nearly 30 years, through several important phases, in a natural merging of respective poetics. Its roots date back to 1991, with Table Light / Wall Light, the first piece made by Foscarini with Wines’ SITE group, created for the cultural areas of the exhibition in Verona “Abitare il Tempo”, curated in that period by Marva Griffin. Some years later, the paths of Foscarini and SITE crossed again, thanks to an extensive profile published in Inventario (the book-zine directed by Beppe Finessi, organised and supported by Foscarini), written by Michele Calzavara with coverage of the group’s many projects. This led to Foscarini’s idea of reviving the first project, transforming it into a collection of editions of lamps and objects.

“For a design-oriented company it is always a privilege to cross paths with the conceptual and artistic evolution of creative talents with whom the firm shares intrinsic affinities. This is what has happened in the case of Foscarini and James Wines.”

CARLO URBINATI
/ PRESIDENT OF FOSCARINI

On the occasion of the 2017 edition of Brera Design Days, Foscarini is presenting an installation of MAESTRIE, an extensive project which sheds light on the craftsmanship skills at the heart of the production of some of Foscarini’s iconic products.

At Foscarini Spazio Brera, a large installation designed by Peter Bottazzi – set designer and multi-purpose designer, who has previously partnered up with directors such as Peter Greenaway, Moni Ovadia and Robert Wilson and curator of exhibition set-ups for Steve Mc Curry – with pictures and videos by Gianluca Vassallo aims at recreating in an emotionally-involving way the know-how and craftsmanship work behind some of the brand’s iconic models.

“I tried to unravel and stratify materials, pictures, motion, lights, projections, products and noises, laying out thousands of stimuli in a far from orthodox choreography”

PETER BOTTAZZI
/ SET AND PROJECT DESIGNER

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A large structure measuring 12 metres in length is set to invade the Foscarini Spazio Brera to share suggestions and fragments of truth through pictures of the faces and hands of craftsmen who give rise to ideas and designs, through their work. The photographs were taken by Gianluca Vassallo inside the small craft-based businesses where lamps such as Mite and Twiggy by Marc Sadler, Aplomb by Lucidi and Pevere, Rituals and Tartan by Ludovica and Roberto Palomba, and Lumiere by Rodolfo Dordoni are put together.

Visitors are welcomed by a maxi-screen on which suggestive pictures of the manufacturing process are shown, a mass of stimuli and precious titbits of know-how, in a tale that is at the same time the stage setting and the ritual process to celebrate the wisdom and skill of craftsmen’s hands. The photographer Gianluca Vassallobecame our spokesperson and vehicle, delving into the forges and lobbies packed with life and warmth, amid hands and materials, pots and toils, to illustrate to us how heavy and tiresome the path leading to the transformation and realisation of an idea always is.

“MAESTRIE highlights the craftsmanship skills which lead to so many extraordinary objects of Italian design, and some of our most popular lamps, which make up an essential part of Foscarini’s DNA. For many years, we focused on the end product, on the styling and emotional impact that it could have, while neglecting however ‘HOW’ this result was obtained. I wanted to find a way to convey the emotions I feel every time I visit the craftsmen who actually make our lamps. I am always fascinated by the extraordinary things that can be done and by the fact that often people forget how attractive and important they are”.

CARLO URBINATI
/ FOSCARINI PRESIDENT

Maestrie is a wide-ranging project focusing on a previously hidden dimension: the crafts know-how that lies behind the making of some of Foscarini’s most iconic models.

Discover Maestrie

Luminous sculptures consisting of overlapping lamps from the Mite family, Tite, Lite rise up like high towers; delightful bouquets of Twiggy create luminous scenes inside impressively-sized spaces in a travelling project by Marc Sadler for Foscarini.

FIBER EVOLUTION is a flexible format designed by Marc Sadler with Foscarini which can be arranged according to the space that hosts the event each time. The large installations reveal the strong personality of each lamp and express the eclectic character of the entire Foscarini collection, devised to create situations of the utmost charm even in large-sized settings, particularly when the lamps are proposed in compositions. It is their multiple presence that strongly connotes the space with ever different furnishing solutions, giving rise to scenarios of the utmost emotional impact.

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Sadler’s giant creatures interpret the innovative spirit, the passion for research and experimentation of new materials and technologies that form the basis of the decades-long partnership between Foscarini and the designer, a partnership which has led to successful lamps such as the Mite and Tite families (Compasso d’Oro 2001) and the iconic Twiggy.

Fiber Evolution was first introduced in Cologne, and subsequently in Stockholm, Vienna, Valencia, Langenthal and New York.

To transmit brand values and, above all, the settings, atmospheres and suggestions that it wants to create through its lamps, Foscarini has presented a video-installation with a strongly emotive impact, at Fuori Salone 2007. Here is the scene as described by its creators, Vittorio Locatelli and Carlo Ninchi.

/ Etna. Exterior. Dawn

From darkness to light.
A landscape of black earth and lava in the bare, colourless, primordial dawn. There is an apparent calm and sense of peace. The silence is broken only by the wind and the birds. But the landscape still smokes; we can feel it boiling at its core. The moving earth breathes. Light grows and clearly separates the white of the air from the black of the land. This is an ancient landscape of memory and dreams. An inner landscape in silent movement.
A figure appears with the landscape. Not in it, but besides it. She is thinking of it, or maybe dreaming of it or remembering it. It is a crude figure, just like the landscape, with the whitest skin and the blackest hair. Oriental, beautiful and cold, with narrow eyes hiding thoughts and emotions.
Memories are born that we can guess at, but not understand. They tell of fragments of history whose theme is light and space.

/ Hong Kong, Man Mo Temple, Interior, Evening

Days gone by. A Buddhist temple whose ceiling is covered by smoking votive spirals. The light is fragmented in an atmospheric dust of vapours. The space is indefinite, mobile and kaleidoscopic, with concentric, spiral movement. A light of the spirit.

/ Catania, Palazzo Biscari, Interior, Day

Another history that interlinks with the one above. Another space and another light. A Baroque palace encrusted with sensual, voluptuous decorations as only Sicilian palazzi can be. It has a touch of the decadent, excessive and yet also magnificent. Here the light is fragmented by gigantic chandeliers in Venetian glass, amplified by mirrors and dissolved in the stucco and furnishings.
The music is sweet, romantic and tugs at the heart strings, like the music enjoyed by young people today – raucous, dirty and discordant. A troubled yet serene song. It speaks of the earth, but is made up of fragments of broken memories. It grows, unstable, with the dizzying spaces and then, unexpectedly, it returns clear and serene, while the figure identifies and superimposes with the landscape. The figure is the landscape. The circle closes.

/ Etna. Exterior. Day

When the landscape/figure explodes slowly and sweetly, it is not the volcano that launches lapilli into the air, but it is the image itself that shatters and slowly disintegrates. It flies into the empty space in a long, suspended period of time.
Before and after, in the real space of the projection, there are material, organic lamps that pulse with intermittent light. Before being objects of design and tools for illumination, they are primordial bodies that give the light form, spectators of the cyclic construction and destruction that occurs all around them. They are stable, silent witness and bringers of light in this dizzying landscape.