Foscarini
65
Foscarini is a company without a factory,
made up of people who work together to share
ideas and projects. The modus operandi is
based on sharing experiences and expertise
with the aim of bringing an original take on
every project.
and reinforced when Carlo Urbinati became its sole director. “To some extent, it was
as if I had to embody a second generation of myself”, Urbinati says. In that moment
he also felt the need, after thirty years, to focus on and specify the DNA of the com-
pany, its unique, original character, identifying some key principles. An operation
of self-examination conducted together with a multidisciplinary team of Università
Ca’ Foscari in Venice, leading to the defi nition of the vision and mission of Fosca-
rini while underscoring the brand’s guiding values: freedom, relation, simplicity,
avant-garde, Italianness. Foscarini works with many materials, many technologies,
many designers, and these refl ections on corporate identity, for a company that had
been remarkably transformed since its beginning, were useful to better defi ne its
characteristics, which also proved to be quite distinctive. The brand has taken on
an all-around recognizability in view of the public, not only focusing on product as
might have happened in the past. This important passage was the result of a pathway
chosen by the company with the aim of creating recognition based on a design appro-
ach with original aspects, and on the courage to imagine new ideas. An ‘otherness’
that is not a matter of snobbery, but an intrinsic part of the company’s evolution,
calling for a wider-ranging concept of design, beyond products and services, exten-
ding to the entire corporate process. Faced with a particular challenge or a particular
need, the company always identifi es original and creative solutions. A type of modus
operandi, a mentality manifested according to the necessities that emerge in product
development, communication, customer service or logistics.
Over the last 20 years the lighting market has shifted towards a more techni-
cal dimension. Foscarini has kept faith with its mission of ‘shedding light’, in the
conviction that a product with character, of great expressive and special impact, will
always fi nd a place in all kinds of homes, anywhere in the world. The orientation
towards the new – not to be confused with novelty for its own sake – guides the de-
sign choices, and the company remains fi rmly convinced that its legacy lies in ideas
and the ability to stimulate, defi ne and develop them, not in the production techno-
logy or the market. In other words, Foscarini continues to focus on the product – not
on the market – never seeing ideas as mere outlets for production capacity or mere
commercial success. Today Foscarini, more than ever, is a ‘factory of ideas’ where the
meaning of the product lies in the pursuit of the new, without overlooking the dimen-
sion of fi ne craftsmanship and the related forms of expertise that represent its roots.
The identity of Foscarini is an emanation of its culture, and creates its image: the two
aspects infl uence each other, so beyond commercial successes what remains in the
catalogue always and in any case expresses an identity constructed over the course
of time. “The catalogue is sacred – Carlo Urbinati says – because it is a family photo,
represented in its essence”, meaning that every choice of product is a matter of great
About shedding light
Chap. 2 — The defi nition of an identity
65
