Featured Designers
Initially founded as a glass manufacturing company by Luigi Fontana in 1881, Milan-based Fontana Arte pioneered one of the key concepts of 20th-century and contemporary Italian design: the union of artistry and industry brought about by partnerships between creative talents and entrepreneurial businesses. Fontana Arte is further distinguished by having had as artistic director, in succession, four of Italy's most inventive modernist designers/architects: Giò Ponti, Pietro Chiesa, Max Ingrand and Gae Aulenti.
Fontana Arte is known for its elegant and innovative designs highlighting purity of form, including sophisticated glass objects, stained glass, lighting, decorative mirrors and even glass-based furniture. Its postwar renewal, pioneered by French-born Ingrand, earned the design house a reputation for glamour and bespoke pieces.
In 1998, Fontana Arte was awarded the ADI Compasso d'Oro in recognition for its significant contribution to the Italian design legacy. Works produced by Fontana Arte can be found in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art (New York), Vitra Design Museum (Weil am Rhein), the Triennale di Milano, and more.
Fontana Arte
The Barovier Dynasty dates back to 1295, when master glassbower Jacobello Barovier began pinching, cutting, blowing and twisting a molten mixture of sand and minerals into works of art. It remained entirely family-owned until the mid-20th century, when it merged with another glassworks to become Barovier & Toso.
Barovier & Toso has proven to be one of the most enduring and prosperous Italian glass manufacturers to date. Under the nearly 50-year artistic directorship of Ercole Barovier (1889–1974), the company created elegant and traditional pieces such as chandeliers, pendants, sconces and vases, produced more naturalistic pieces embodying the ‘Liberty Style’, (Italian term for Art Nouveau), as well as pioneering more innovative modernist glass techniques and designs with bold colors, patterns and surfaces.