Flos Lighting: Italian Manufacturer, Cocoon Innovation, and Modern Design Icons

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

Flos lighting occupies a distinctive place in postwar Italian design. Founded in Merano in 1962 by Dino Gavina and Cesare Cassina, Flos began as an experiment in what an industrial lighting company could be. It was not simply a manufacturer, but a designer-led laboratory where materials, engineering, and domestic life could be reimagined through light.

Origins of Flos lighting in Merano

In the early 1960s, Gavina worked with the small Merano producer Eisenkeil to explore new lighting possibilities. They focused especially on a sprayed “cocoon” coating applied over a metal frame. Flos’ own historical account frames this period as the company’s “prehistory.” This was when the foundational ideas for the brand took shape and lighting began to be treated as a material problem rather than a styling exercise. Flos

This origin story matters because Flos lighting did not begin with a single signature object. It started with a method—an approach to prototyping, surface, diffusion, and atmosphere—guided by designers who understood the home as a testing ground for modern living.

The Cocoon technique and the Castiglioni moment

The Cocoon technique—liquid resin sprayed around a metal core—became one of the brand’s most recognisable material signatures. Flos still describes Cocoon as a craft-based process with an unusually expressive range. This technique is capable of producing soft, glowing volumes that feel both engineered and atmospheric.

Two of the most important early Cocoon designs associated with Flos lighting are Viscontea (1960) and Taraxacum 1 (1960). Both were designed by Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni. Viscontea’s diffused form reads like a luminous, suspended shell. Taraxacum, named for the dandelion, turns a metal frame into a botanical haze through its sprayed skin.

It is worth noting the chronology here. Several Cocoon works date to 1960—before Flos’ formal founding in 1962. Yet they function as the conceptual seedbed for the company that followed. In other words, Flos lighting coalesced around designs already pointing toward a new industrial poetry of light.

Brescia, Sergio Gandini, and the “think tank” model

A decisive shift occurred when Sergio Gandini began managing Flos in 1963, and the company moved to Brescia’s industrial context. Flos characterises Gandini’s leadership as a rare fusion of business strategy and creative ambition. The company was operating as what we would now call a “think tank,” jointly defining products, communication, and brand image alongside its designers.

This model helps explain why Flos lighting repeatedly produces designs that feel inevitable in hindsight. The objects emerge from sustained dialogue between experimentation and production, rather than from trend response. That culture also supports long product lives—designs that remain in production for decades without losing relevance.

Icons that defined modern lighting design

The most famous Flos lighting objects are not simply bestsellers. They operate as design arguments—clear demonstrations of how structure, material, and user behaviour can be solved with elegance.

Arco (1962), designed by Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni, remains an emblem of this thinking. Its marble base and arcing stainless-steel stem provide overhead light without ceiling installation. It turns a domestic constraint into a sculptural solution. The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) documents Arco (1962) as a Flos-manufactured design in its collection. This underlines the lamp’s status as an institutionalised design classic. The Museum of Modern Art

Taccia (1962), also by the Castiglioni brothers, pushes the logic further by treating a table lamp as an “inverted” ceiling fixture concept. It features an engineered reflector and adjustable glass diffuser that invite active control over the light. MoMA’s Castiglioni exhibition documentation records Taccia as a 1962 work manufactured and lent by Flos. The Museum of Modern Art

Even when Flos lighting revisits earlier ideas, it does so in a way that clarifies the brand’s philosophy: light is not decoration. It is infrastructure for living—an architectural element scaled to the body.

From experimental material to quiet minimalism

Flos lighting has never stayed fixed in one aesthetic. If Cocoon represents the brand’s materially expressive side, later collaborations demonstrate a parallel commitment to reduction, clarity, and contemporary domestic restraint.

That breadth becomes visible in your gallery selection. Jasper Morrison’s Glo-Ball expresses a modernist belief in the calm authority of a simple sphere. It is diffuse, legible, and adaptable across settings. Philippe Starck’s portable designs, such as Bon Jour, shift the brand into everyday mobility and rechargeable convenience. They retain a high level of formal discipline. Meanwhile, projects aligned with studios such as Formafantasma show Flos lighting engaging a more analytical contemporary language—systems, wires, assemblies—where the object’s “making” remains visible rather than concealed.

This range is consistent with Flos’ historical model: a company that treats designers as authors and lighting as a field where new materials, behaviours, and interiors can be tested.

Collecting, specifying, and reading a Flos object

For collectors and specifiers, Flos lighting is best understood through three recurring criteria:

1. Material intelligence – whether Cocoon resin, spun metal, glass diffusers, or marble, the material is never incidental. It governs the lamp’s character and the quality of light. Flos
2. User-centred engineering – adjustability, stability, and maintenance are built into the logic of the design rather than added later.
3. Atmosphere as function – Flos consistently treats diffused light as a spatial tool, not a mood accessory. This explains its enduring popularity in architectural interiors.

A useful example of Flos’ long-view attitude to production is Teli: documented by MoMA as a hanging lamp associated with 1973. It has an earlier 1959 design origin. It shows how Italian design objects often circulate through prototypes, limited production, and later industrial editions. The Museum of Modern Art

Why Flos lighting still matters

Flos lighting matters because it has persistently framed illumination as a design discipline. It bridges architecture, product engineering, and domestic culture. From Cocoon’s experimental diffusion to the clean geometry of later minimal pieces, Flos demonstrates a rare continuity. It treats the lamp as a problem to be solved with intelligence, not as a style to be applied.

In doing so, Flos has helped define what “modern” lighting means in practice. It explores how light lands on a table, how a room holds shadow, and how an object can remain technically relevant while also carrying the aesthetic authority of a classic.

Sources

Byars, M., & Riley, T. (2004). The design encyclopedia. Laurence King Publishing. https://amzn.to/3ElmSlL

Flos. (n.d.). Inside Flos: The history of Flos, since 1962. Flos

Flos. (n.d.). Viscontea pendant lamp (Designed by Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni, 1960). Flos

Flos. (n.d.). Taraxacum 1 pendant lamp (Designed by Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni, 1960). Flos

Flos. (n.d.). Cocoon family collection lamps. Flos

Museum of Modern Art. (n.d.). Achille Castiglioni, Pier Giacomo Castiglioni: Arco floor lamp (1962), Manufacturer: Flos S.p.A. The Museum of Modern Art

Museum of Modern Art. (1997). Taccia table lamp (1962), Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni (Manufactured and lent by Flos). The Museum of Modern Art

Museum of Modern Art. (1997). Teli hanging lamp (1973 [1959]), Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni. The Museum of Modern Art

1stDibs. (2020, February 16). It’s time to shine a new light on legendary Italian maker FLOS. 1stDibs