Foscarini
Foscarini started on the island of Murano in 1981 and now works from near Venice. It describes itself as a company without a factory: designers bring the ideas, and craft workshops in its region make them, in blown glass, concrete and fibre. Its newest pendants, Eolie, use a compound made from lava-stone waste. We carry the full Foscarini lighting range in Ottawa, and you can see an Aplomb in our showroom.
Selected pieces
Filter by type
From Murano to the mainland
Foscarini was founded on Murano in 1981, making lighting for contract projects, and published its first catalogue of design lamps two years later. In 1988 Carlo Urbinati and Alessandro Vecchiato, who had joined as designers, became its owners. The next year a new logo dropped the reference to Murano, and by 1994 the whole company had moved to Marcon, on the mainland near Venice.
A company without a factory
“If a lamp can already be made, it is of no interest to us,” says Carlo Urbinati, Foscarini’s chairman. Instead of a factory, Foscarini works with skilled craft workshops. Rituals has lines ground into blown glass, Hoba is blown so that no two pieces are quite the same, Aplomb turns concrete into a shade of minimal thickness, and Eolie is made from a light compound of lava-stone waste. We have an Aplomb installed in our Ottawa showroom, so you can see the concrete up close.
Caboche and Twiggy
Caboche, by Patricia Urquiola and Eliana Gerotto, began with the wish to make a lamp “as precious as a bracelet”: clear beads gathered around the light, which Foscarini calls an icon of designer lighting, now in a brighter Plus version. A year later Marc Sadler’s Twiggy hung its shade from a flexible rod, “just like a fishing rod”, adjusted with counterweights. Foscarini calls it an icon of designer arc lamps.
Light, shadow and reflection
Several Foscarini pieces are designed as much for the shadows and reflections they cast as for their light. Bahia overlaps plates with slightly uneven profiles, Lake hides its LED in a fold at the edge so the light runs across a glossy surface, and Spokes and Allegretto use slim lines of metal that throw patterns around a room.
Lanterns and moons
Chouchin is named after Japanese paper-and-bamboo lanterns and made in blown glass; in the Reverse version the colours swap and the light spreads into the room. Plena is named and shaped after the moon and lights both the table and the ceiling, Satellight sets a milk-white glass diffuser inside clear glass, so the light seems to float, and Tobia‘s floor lamp has a knot you can grip to carry it.
See Foscarini in our showroom
Whether you’re specifying for a client or choosing for your own home, book a visit to our Ottawa showroom to see an Aplomb. Or get in touch, and we’ll go through the full Foscarini range with you, including which versions are made for North America.