More than 50 models, more than 20 materials, more than 30 designers – if Foscarini had to be described with numbers, these would be them. A company that actually ignores the most important advice of image designers: that their entire collection should create a unified world. However, they believe in lamps that have their own individuality and a separate story. Because this results in a more colorful and stronger brand, apparently.
In 1291, the Venetian government decided to designate the island of Murano, near the city, as a place for glassmakers to work in order to prevent fires. Small family businesses made Venetian glassmaking world-famous over the centuries, and it was here, on this tiny island, that one of the world's most famous lamp brands, Foscarini, was born in 1981. At first, they only dealt with contract manufacturing, and two years later they published their first catalog, from which anyone could order even a single piece.
Designers Carlo Urbinato and Alessandro Vecchiato became the owners of the brand in 1988, and in the meantime they stopped using only Murano glass (they didn't have their own kiln anyway), and opened up to other materials as the world developed technologically. The brand left the island in 1994, having outgrown it, and moved to the mainland, to Marcon, near Venice. Foscarini's history is a series of collaborations, as the brand has developed a business model where its new models are designed by commissioned designers, so a diverse range has come together over the decades, the only thing that all of its pieces have in common is that they are trendsetters and special.
Foscarini is all about experimentation.
It is not uncommon for a Foscarini lamp to take years to go from the first pencil stroke to the product intended for sale “rolling off” the assembly line – which often has taken on a completely different shape than it once did on the drawing. Foscarini never had the goal of only collaborating with star designers; its first great success, the Lumiere lamp family from 1990, for example, was created by a little-known designer, Rodolfo Dordoni. The playful, colorful Orbital floor lamp from 1992 was special in that the company was the first to use industrial glass for it.
The 1993 Havana was no longer made of glass, they used a different material for the first time – in this case polyethylene. The move in 1994 not only meant that the company could do all its activities in one larger location, but by leaving Murano they also said goodbye to blown glass as their primary raw material. The novelty of the 2000 Mite floor lamp and Tite pendant lamps is that they are made of a material called Kevlar, which is a mixture of glass and carbon fiber. Here the company first showed that it was not afraid to use the results of new experiments and wanted to be innovative in the market. In 2002 they entered new territory: they published their own design magazine called Lux, which existed until 2008, and its primary role was not to sell Foscarini models, but to take the way the media presented lighting fixtures to a new level. In 2003, the brand celebrated its 20th birthday with a new headquarters, which was now architecturally worthy of representing a global brand.
The brand that managed to sign the biggest names
Tom Dixon, Karim Rashid, Patricia Urquiola – a few of the great designers who also worked for Foscarini. The latter’s Caboche lamp family from 2005 is now a classic in design history, one of the most sold and counterfeited products in the world. Let’s also mention Marc Sadler’s Twiggy model from 2006, which is also an iconic design, the thin floor lamp was inspired by the famous British mannequin. Of course, Foscarini had already exhibited at Milan Design Week a long time ago, but it did not forget where it started.
In 2008, it became an official sponsor of the Venice Biennale for seven years. In 2009, Renzo Rosso, founder of the Diesel fashion brand, asked the brand to be responsible for the design and marketing of the Diesel Living lamps for his home furnishing product line. In 2013, Foscarini will open two of its own brand stores, one in Milan (which has now closed) and the other in Soho, New York, which will be called Spazio. Their aim is to spread the Foscarini identity, which is the responsibility of the Desidea multibrand design store in MaxCity, and it is worth visiting them!
