Italian Design 🇮🇹

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” Leonardo da Vinci
Oceano Oltreluce - Cover Page

Oceano Oltreluce, founded in 1981, is an Italian lighting manufacturer specializing in innovative design and craftsmanship. The company’s philosophy is “Italian light workshop,” with in-house production, local sourcing, and authenticity. They embrace eco-sustainability and strive for continuous improvement.Read More →

Marco Zotta "Arcobaleno" Table Black Lamp for Cil Roma, 1970's, Italy

He designed furniture and furnishings, lighting for clients including Fargas, Le Cose, Studio Grando, Stilnovo and Evoluzione. He became a member of ADI (Associazione per il Disegno Industriale).Read More →

Grillo folding telephone in blue by marco Zanuso

Marco Zanuso Sr. was an Italian architect and designer. He was born in Milan. He studied architecture at the Politecnico di Milano, to 1939. Read More →

Tizio Lamp by Richard Sapper

The halogen bulb is the first new invention to completely transform the lighting industry since Thomas Alva Edison succeeded in creating the incandescent lamp by successfully making a loop of carbonized cotton thread glow in a vacuum for 40 hours.Read More →

enzo frateili sofa featured image

Enzo Frateili was an Italian designer born in Rome and active in Milan. Frateili began his professional career in 1955. In the early 50s, he worked at Stile Industrial; in 1962 he was the Italian correspondent to the journal form. His books included Archiektur und Komfort (1967) and Design e Civiltà della Machina (1969). The Instituto di Architettura e Urbanistica published his paper on the theoretical and methodological aspects of problem-solving, Universitá di Trieste. In 1963, he led a seminar, Hochschule für Gestaltung, Ulm. Read More →

Monsani’s Life system for Acerbis

Acerbis is a 150-year-old furniture manufacturer in Italy, founded in 1870 by Benvenuto Acerbis and his grandson Lodovico Acerbis, who introduced cutting-edge industrial production and partnerships with avant-garde designers by the 1960s.Read More →

P40 articulated lounge chair

Osvaldo Borsani Armchair (P40) 1955, articulated chaise longue. The rubber-armed chair was a sophisticated ‘machine for sitting’ that could it was claimed, assume 486 positions.Read More →

Franco Fontana featured image

Fontana has shot advertisements for brands such as Fiat, Volkswagen, Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane, Snam, Sony, Volvo, Versace, Canon, Kodak, Robe di Kappa, Swissair, and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and The New York Times.Read More →

La Danese domestic goods manufacturer

La Danese was founded in Milan by Bruno Danese and Jacqueline Vodoz. The company specialised in editing, designing, and marketing well‐designed everyday products with a modern aesthetic. There were three significant focus areas: domestic and office products, artistic editions, and children’s games and creative play stimuli. Read More →

Kartell featured image

Kartell is a Milanese furniture manufacturer founded in 1949. It specialises in high-quality plastic injection mouldings and the early fiftiesRead More →

Flos Lighting Manufacturer

Dino Gavina established the lighting firm Flos in 1962 to complement his furniture manufacturing at Gavina. In Merano, at first, it moved to the Brescia area. Maria Sinoncini and Cesare Cassina were directors, followed by Sergio Gandini. Read More →

Antonio Zanussi featured image

Antonio Zanussi established the household appliance firm in Pordenone in 1916. It was initially a workshop for repairing stoves. His sons and Guido and Lino took over on his death in 1946, and under them, the firm began its rise. Read More →

Mies Chair and Ottoman featured image

Four architects—Andrea Branzi, Gilberto Corretti, Paolo Deganello, Massimo Morozzi—and two designers—Dario Bartolini and Lucia Bartolini—founded Archizoom this Italian avant-garde design studio in 1966 in Florence, Italy. They focused on exhibition installations and architecture and designing interiors and goods as part of the Italian Anti-Design or Radical Design movement.Read More →

The Painting of John F. Kennedy and Pope John XXIII, entitled the “Peace Sowers,” was done by Walter Molino (1915 – 1997). Molino shows the men moving hand-in-hand through a plowed field scattering “seeds of goodwill.” Molino’s placard underneath the painting reads;Read More →

Vintage armchair Jumbo fibreglass

Alberto Rosselli (1921-76) Italian architect and industrial designer. He was born in Palermo. He was professionally active in Milan. Read More →

Ashoka Table Lamp by Ettore Sottsass

For the introductory 1981 MEMPHIS set, the Ashoka table lamp is an early Ettore Sottsass lighting masterwork as iconoclastic a light/sculpture as you can find anywhere!!Read More →

Roberto Pamio featured image

He became active in 1961 as an architect and furniture and industrial designer; (with Renato Tosso) collaborated on furniture and lighting; had clients including Zanussi-Rex, Peguri, Stilwood, Arclinea, Cidue, FAI, Leucos, and Arflex.Read More →

David Palterer Black and White Image

David Palterer is an Israeli designer born in Haifa. He is professionally active in Florence.Read More →

Benedikt Bolza

Trained as an architect in London, he and a team of 120 transform centuries-old stone ruins into exquisite dwellings at Castello di Reschio, a 3,000-acre private community in Umbria, Italy, on land originally purchased by his parents.Read More →

A cassone is a big decorated chest that was made in Italy between the 14th and 16th centuries. In 1472, a Florentine merchant married a young noblewoman named Vaggia Nerli. Cassoni were put on display in the most important and well-furnished room in the palace.Read More →