Flos celebrated the 50th Anniversary of this cult piece of Italian industrial design by Achille Castiglioni and Pio Manzù at this years Milan Design Week 2021.
"There was a lot of Manzù in that drawing, recalls Giacomo Manzoni, son of the maestro and curator of his Foundation: "his obsession with simplicity, cost reduction, everyday objects". "The sketch had all the elements to make Castiglioni fall in love: flexibility, ready-made, lightness"
adds his daughter Giovanna Castiglioni, curator of the Achille Castiglioni Foundation.
Good design creates relationships – between people, objects, technologies. But when it allows for impossible connections to occur, it evokes the idea of magic.
It is indeed the word magic that springs to mind when thinking about the story of Parentesi, the lamp by Pio Manzù and Achille Castiglioni, produced by Flos since 1971 and presented for its 50th anniversary in the new editions Turquoise and Orange Signal. The story of Parentesi is the story of a dialogue that never happened, a story of ingenuity fueled by a passion for everyday objects, and an example of the respect that those who create should have for the creativity of others.
The story of Parentesi begins with the premature death, in 1969, of young designer Pio Manzù. A unique talent, he was the inventor of the first multi purpose vehicle and author of immortal transport icons such as the FIAT 127. Castiglioni knew his work, but the two never met. Thanks to Manzu’s widow, Castiglioni was presented with his drawings, and one caught his attention. It was a slotted, light emitting cylindrical tin resting on a rod connecting ceiling and floor: thanks to a screw, it could make a half turn, and move up, down and stop. It was the original idea behind Parentesi.
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