Inaugurated at Palazzo Piacentini, headquarters of the Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italy, the exhibition “Identitalia, The Iconic Italian Brands.” Among the historical brands exhibited is Fantoni.
The Fantoni brand and design represent, within a selection of 100 companies, the Italian productive identity in the exhibition inaugurated on February 13th in Rome at Palazzo Piacentini, headquarters of the Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italy.
The exhibition, created to celebrate the 140 years of the Italian trademarks and patents office and visitable until April, is titled “Identitalia – The iconic Italian brands” and the hundred examples exhibited have been selected among the Historical Brands that over the years have contributed to making Made in Italy great.
Brands and company stories from all sectors of goods. In the furniture and furnishing industry, besides Fantoni, names such as Cassina, B&B, Kartell, and Flou have been chosen.
At the inaugural ceremony, besides Minister Adolfo Urso, the President of Unioncamere, Andrea Prete, the President of the Historical Brands Association, Massimo Caputi, and the representatives of the exhibited brands participated.
Fantoni presents itself in the exhibition with its brand, famous in interior design magazines since the 1950s, and with a construction element conceived 55 years ago and still iconic today: the 45-degree joint invented by the Friulian industry and still in production for some of its most iconic office furniture collections.
“From 1968 to today, the 45-degree cut has been a distinctive element of our company and has become a reference point in the design world,” explains Paolo Fantoni, current president of the industrial group, with pride for the invitation received from the Ministry. “This innovation was part of the first important project on which my father Marco and Gino Valle worked together, namely the one for the collection of furniture initially commissioned by Rinascente in Milan and then realized for the Zanussi headquarters in Porcia. It was a revolutionary collection, not only because it used a 45-degree panel joint, but also because for the first time it abolished any hierarchy within the staff: managers and employees all had the same type of furniture.”
The engineering detail has primarily an aesthetic value and requires a higher production cost. It was conceived in 1968 by the famous Udinese architect Gino Valle – whose hundred years since birth have just been celebrated with an exhibition at Casa Cavazzini visitable until April 28 – and by his German colleague Herbert Ohl for the Multiples program. Valle, in particular, demonstrated his creative ambivalence: not only in architecture but also in industrial design, so much so as to deserve in his prolific career two Compasso d’Oro awards.
“This solution enhances the surface rather than the volume, that is, the plane rather than the thickness, and reduces the number of joint lines,” continues Fantoni. “The final visual effect is a sort of dematerialization of the furniture, making it lighter. For over 55 years, it has become a distinctive element of our production, even though over time it has been declined through at least six different production technologies that have succeeded. Even today, it is a solution adopted in two of our collections: the executive furniture Multipliceo and the one called, precisely, Quaranta5.”