Molteni: an extraordinary family story told in a collector’s book

The Molteni family has been custodians of the history of Italian design for ninety years. Today this extraordinary reality is celebrated in a book, published by the prestigious publishing house Rizzoli New York.

Every morning, on that bicycle with thin wheels, grandfather Angelo goes to the factory in Giussano to check that everything works perfectly. He is obsessed with “know-how” and from qualityhas just imported the first machines for mass production from Germany, and the company “Arredamenti di Angelo Molteni” founded in 1934 has more than 60 collaborators. It becomes less and less of a workshop and more and more of an industry: there is total control over the entire supply chain, from the trunk to the finished piece of furniture. Shortly thereafter, the world of furniture would change forever: an international competition, the Selettiva del Mobile, in Cantù, brought together designers and producers, giving rise to the first prototypes of modern furniture. Since the industrial revolution, attention has shifted to style. Everything else is history. The history of design, in which Molteni has held – and still holds – a decisive role. Suffice it to say that Angelo, together with 13 other entrepreneurs, created the first Salone del Mobile in Milan in 1961.

A relay of generations at the helm of the company

Exactly ninety years and three generations later, riding the cherry red Olmo bicycle, there it is Carlo Molteni, now president and CEO of the group. Posing in a family shot in the Compound in Brianza, transformed into movie set for the production of the celebratory book Molteni Mondo. An Italian Design Story (ed. Rizzoli New York). Behind the lens is the photographer Jeff Burton, with its saturated colors stolen from the American realist tradition. The editorial care is by Spencer Bailey, the artistic direction of Studio Achermann of Zurich, while the introduction is signed by Jean Nouvel and the afterword is by Jacques Herzog. In between, a stellar cast of designers and architects – from Vincent Van Duysen to Ron Gilad, Jacques Herzog, Jasper Morrison, Tobia Scarpa And Patricia Urquiola, with whom the company has always collaborated. Articulated like scenes from a film, it is an Oscar-worthy book, with key moments that Giulia Molteni, chief marketing officer of the group and Carlo’s daughter, knows well. «From industrial production in the 1950s to the adventure in design in the 1960s, up to the contract division and the museum.