Ua liquid, transparent soul, which can take the shape and meaning chosen by the creativity of a human being and his vision. “We are the lateral thinking of glass”, says Davide Livi of Fiam Italia, the company of which he is CEO, founded in Pesaro by his father Vittorio in 1973. Founded but also shaped, since Vittorio Livi is its technical, artistic and visionary, in fact.
«Glass is a material that my father has always felt to be his – says Livi -. He started working in a glass factory at 14, and at 17 he started working on his own. In the sixties he was dazzled when he saw the glass of a bell tower bend. He decides to invest in this technique, which is soon a success, and to start producing glass furniture as well, an idea that seemed crazy, but that had come to him when he had produced a glass stool from which he observed the glass in the experimental furnace which he himself devised and which still works. With the first five pieces of furniture, Fiam is born ».
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Fiam Italia is therefore a company of creativity and technology, where research and experimentation never stop: «Even mistakes are good, because they generate innovation», notes the entrepreneur. Yet, the history of Fiam seems to be studded with much more success, such as the Compasso d’Oro award in 2001, but also the famous Ghost armchair, entirely in glass, designed in 1987 by Cini Boeri, an icon in the history of Italian design, such as the Ragno table, designed by Vittorio Livi. Furnishings that maintain their disruptive aesthetic intensity over time and are loved all over the world: «70% of our turnover is abroad – explains Livi -. Since October 2019, we have been growing by 16-20% per year. It took us, we also had difficult years, but we never lost our faith in glass. Now we are making a lot of investments: we are re-photographing the catalog, we have launched a digital Academy to train our salespeople remotely, we have a new area manager for Africa, the Middle East and India, markets we want to develop. We are growing everywhere, also thanks to the fact that the pandemic has rediscovered the spaces of living ».
Moreover, glass is a material that is very popular today: «Design companies are approaching glass that had not previously considered it. Bottega Veneta and Adidas shot their advertising campaigns with our Ghost armchair ». In addition to being beautiful, glass is also an ontologically sustainable material, another characteristic that cannot be renounced today: «To produce glass, cullet is required – underlines Livi-. It also does not degrade producing microparticles like plastic, and it always remains of excellent quality recycling after recycling. It is biodegradable, and at the end of its life it becomes sand again ». Fiam has made glass even make a further evolution towards sustainability: “One of our most recent projects is DV Glass, a solid glass with a thickness never reached before, made in full circularity, composed of slices of waste glass that we compact and merge together. Today we recycle 95% of our waste, and we produce, for example, the Waves coffee table designed by Ludovica and Roberto Palomba ». But sustainability is also a commitment to its territory: after the 2016 earthquake, Fiam decided to convert part of the Ghost’s 30th anniversary celebration project into a fundraiser, which allowed the reconstruction of two classrooms of a school in Cascia. in nearby Umbria. And then there is Villa Miralfiore, a medieval residence in the heart of Pesaro renovated by Vittorio Livi and today a company museum, but also a gift to his city. The latest news from Fiam Italia will also soon enter, starting with the Echo collection by Marcel Wanders, furniture with three-dimensional glass doors (“a very important project, born in the middle of the pandemic and in which we invested 100 thousand euros only in molds”, he explains Livi), but also the brilliant Coral Beach table by Mac Stopa: «With this table we have given movement to the material, with bubbles that follow the Fibonacci curves, and which create almost ripples, but on a flat surface».
Where will the glass flow lead in the future? «We are working on the launch of a mood, therefore on a concept for furniture for the living and dining area, which we will bring to the Salone del Mobile 2022. We want to develop our production of mirrors, in which we are already an excellence. And we are also looking at the hotel with interestlerie, a sector in great development ».