Interior design is made of aesthetic choices, but behind every object that furnishes our homes there are often surprising stories, inventions born by chance and small obsessions of their creators. Here are ten facts that, the next time you look at a lamp or a chair, will make you see furniture with different eyes.
1. The Arco lamp was created so as not to drill the ceiling
One of the most iconic pieces of Italian design, the Arco lamp, was designed in 1962 by the brothers Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni for Flos. The problem to solve was as simple as it was brilliant: how do you light a room from above, pendant-style, without having to drill the ceiling? The solution was a long arched steel stem, inspired by street lamps, supported by a Carrara marble base of around 50 kg that acts as a counterweight. One curious detail: the base has a hole designed specifically so you can slide a broom handle through it and move the lamp effortlessly. For more than sixty years it has remained practically identical, and it has appeared in several James Bond films and even in Tony Stark penthouse in Iron Man.
2. The Memphis movement was born in one evening, around a table
In December 1980, the designer Ettore Sottsass gathered at his home a group of young architects and designers, among them Michele De Lucchi and Nathalie Du Pasquier. Within a few weeks, that informal group, which took its name from a Bob Dylan song heard that evening, worked up more than a hundred projects and gave rise to Memphis Milano, the collective that would revolutionise design with eccentric shapes, bright colours and a declared rejection of the essential functionalism that had dominated until then. From an idea born in a living room came one of the most influential design movements of the twentieth century.
3. Japandi is a word that did not exist twenty years ago
The Japandi style, which fuses Japanese minimalism with Scandinavian warmth, owes its name to a coinage that only became popular after 2020, even though its roots lie in the meeting of Nordic and Japanese designers as far back as the last century. The secret of its success lies in the union of two philosophies of life: Japanese wabi-sabi, which celebrates the beauty of imperfection, and Scandinavian hygge, which puts domestic wellbeing at the centre. The result is a style that speaks of simplicity, natural materials and slow time, and that today is one of the best-loved collections in our catalogue too.
4. The industrial style came from a housing problem, not from a fashion
In the 1950s, in New York, many old disused warehouses and industrial buildings in the city centre were converted into homes out of practical necessity: they were large, cheap and available. From this housing need came the first lofts, with high ceilings, exposed brick and pipework on show rather than hidden. What today we deliberately choose as a furnishing style (raw surfaces, metal, reclaimed wood) came about almost by chance, as a solution for reusing the city.
5. The colour of the walls can change how warm a room feels
It is not only a question of looks: warm colours such as red, orange and yellow tend to make a room feel more welcoming (and, according to some studies, even slightly warmer), while cool tones such as blue and aqua convey calm and can make a room feel cooler. That is why, when choosing the colours of a home, personal taste is not the only thing that counts: so is the use that room will be put to. Energising for a study, relaxing for a bedroom.
6. The most famous chairs in design often take their name from the material or the technique used
Many twentieth-century design icons owe their name not to the person who drew them but to the production process that made them possible: the technology of heat-bent plywood, for example, allowed extremely light and strong seating to be made, which changed for ever the way furniture is produced in series, making quality design accessible to far more people than traditional craft could.
7. The Coastal style was not born by the sea, but to recreate the idea of the sea
Contrary to what people think, the Coastal style does not come from one precise coastal tradition: it developed as a furnishing language meant to evoke a maritime atmosphere wherever you are, with natural fabrics, a soft palette between white and blue, and materials such as rattan and light wood. It is one of the most requested styles for second homes, but more and more often it is also chosen for city flats, as a small everyday holiday within your own walls.
8. The 1960s brought plastic (and bright colours) into everyone homes
Before the 1960s, furnishing with bold colours or plastic materials was almost unthinkable in middle-class homes. The economic boom and new plastic production techniques made a more playful, colourful and democratic kind of furnishing possible, opening the way to what we now call the POP style: sinuous shapes, bold colours and an idea of the home as a space for expressing personality, not just for function.
9. The arrangement of the furniture influences the way we talk to each other
Studies in environmental psychology show that the arrangement of furniture in a living room, for example seating placed at an angle rather than rigidly aligned, encourages conversation and reduces the sense of formality. It is one of the reasons interior design projects almost always start from studying the flows and the relationships between people in a room, before the style is even chosen.
10. Minimalism does not mean less, it means essential
One of the great misunderstandings about minimal design is thinking it simply means having few pieces of furniture. In fact the principle behind minimalism, whether Scandinavian, Japanese or Japandi, is that every object in a room should have a precise function or meaning. It is not about emptiness, but about more considered choices: fewer elements, but chosen with more care.
Did you recognise yourself in one of these styles? From Japandi to Industrial, from Coastal to POP, in our shop you will find furniture organised by collection and by room, designed to help you build a home that says something about you: with the convenience of a bespoke project, wherever you are in Italy.