Twenty

by design critic Alberto Bassi

Twenty years are certainly just a drop in the wide river of History; they can however represent a significant chronological milestone if they are considered in terms of a single experience, be it of an individual or a company.

The Foscarini lighting company, which presented its first complete collection of lamps in 1983, reaches an important milestone in time this year. Twenty years, especially when they reach the present and involve what is contemporary, appear truly too little to make a definitive judgement, to give a reading and evaluation of the facts with the necessary historical and critical objectivity; but they are sufficient to make order (at least one of the possible orders) in the events, to narrate an itinerary, its protagonists, its turning points and major decisions. It therefore appears natural to move through history and fact, where the value and significance of certain episodes and phases appear consolidated, secure, acknowledged; others identify the early nucleus of directions and perspectives. It appears just as obvious that the present condition and its characteristics should orient the reconstruction, the organization of material which was originally quite diversified; orienting it at times towards a generally uniform and unitary understanding. But when speaking of the past, be it distant or near (and looking to the future), it is impossible to ignore the present; it therefore becomes necessary to be selective and take a stand.

This “brief” history would therefore like, first of all, to be a useful orientation tool. The reconstruction of these first twenty years in the life of Foscarini, understood as the progressive consolidation of a business culture oriented towards design, offers different possibilities for interpretation: some of them synchronic, the result of specific events, in particular four significant temporal chapters in the history of the company; others are diachronic and identified with the “ideas”, in the wider sense of strategic and global decisions which progressively became both inspiration and elements of clear identification.

Research and innovation, attention to the quality of the production process and the services offered, and naturally the “good project”, as Enzo Mari dryly defines design, have constituted precise and consistent elements of the Foscarini identity during these twenty years.