6th Istanbul Furniture FairInternational Exhibition of Outdoor Furnishing, SUN,Rimini,Italy 2009DOMO360, Pesaro,Italy, 2009 International Furniture ShowPromosedia, Udine,Italy 2009 Italian Chair ExhibitionTriennale, Milan Italy, The Permanent CollectionXYLEXPO 2009 woodworking technologies: Milan ItalyFiera internazionale del mobile, Milan Italy,2009Molteni Italian Furniture Group
The Molteni group is one of Italy's leading industrial groups in the furnishing sector. It comprises three companies, each one a leader in its own sector:
Molteni & C Spa (home furnishings), Unifor Spa (office furnishings) and Dada Spa (kitchens furniture).
It provides a global offer in the italian furniture sector to 37 countries around the world, as well as in Italy. The group has a long history. Its business activities started in the 1930s with a craft firm, Molteni, which started to expand in the 1950s, opting for mechanisation with a view to industrial furniture production. In the 1970s, it split into three furniture companies as a result of its size and to better respond to the needs of the market.
Today, the Molteni Group is one of the few with an integral manufacturing cycle: it has total control of its furniture production, from the choice of materials to the final definition of the piece.
The three companies have developed an extensive synergy in terms of technology, research and the exploration of new types adapted to the changes in course in the home and workplace. The Molteni group has always worked with first-rate furniture designers such as Pier Luigi Cerri, Michele De Lucchi, Rodolfo Dordoni, Foster & Partners, Ferruccio Laviani, Luca Meda, Jean Nouvel, Pagani e Perversi, Bruno Reichlin, Aldo Rossi, Afra and Tobia Scarpa, Gerard Van den Berg, Hannes Wettstein, Patricia Urquiola and Paola Navone.
Molteni & C
Molteni & C is a furniture company with advanced technology and a longstanding tradition. In the 1970s, it started to define its identity by following two routes. First, it implemented ongoing research in the sector of modular furniture, developing with Luca Meda's designs a number of solutions suited to all parts of the home, from wardrobe to living room and study/home office furniture.
Modular systems furniture such as 505, 7volte7 and Pass, to name but a few, are designs in constant evolution, both in technical and construction terms, as well as in function and comfort. They have been highly successful and Molteni is considered a leader in home furniture sector. Since the 1980s, in particular, Molteni has proposed a large collection of single pieces that can with the modular furnishings create a home of simple elegance. From the types bound to the collective living furniture memory, characteristic of the designs of Aldo Rossi, it came, in the 1990s, to produce furnishings such as those designed by Jean Nouvel, in which essence blends with advanced technological solutions, a research terrain that has always distinguished the company.
The company made a dual choice. On the one hand, to maintain sophisticated craftsmanship in-house, as regards material know-how, careful finishes and product customisation.
On the other, the company has always developed its research on the terrain of technological research, with the ongoing experimentation of innovatory furniture solutions.
Molteni furniture incorporates the expertise of a long craft tradition plus innovatory technological quality, which facilitates the life of the user but is in no way ostentatious. When talking about Molteni, people also speak of hidden italian quality, alluding to the technical, functional and material quality present but often unseen in its furniture.
Molteni quality is well known in Italy where the group is based, but also internationally, because the company exports furniture to the leading world markets. All the furniture designers that work with Molteni are highly individual but agree on the fact that furniture must be elegant and comfortable, but also sturdy and incorporate attention to detail and be produced from fine woods and carefully checked materials.
This is furniture that, apart from the individual charm of each piece, offers a possibility to define - with a wealth of choices but a single good taste - the lifestyle in the Molteni home .
Today, both individual pieces and modular furniture systems are conceived for the simple elegant home that is also unconstrained and capable of responding to the new needs produced both by the current changes in lifestyles and computerisation with home entertainment and home offices.
Molteni proposes modular furniture systems that are highly functional and attractive but are also conceived for practical and free solutions, suitable to store and offer easy use of information-telecom technology.
Globalisation and the computer revolution drive such a Group to conduct constant research into new technological and type solutions, to facilitate both domestic comfort and work activities.
Molteni is also active in major contracts furniture such as hotels, museums, ships, shop chains, hospitals and theatres. Recent examples include furnishings for the Walt Disney cruise ships built by Fincantieri, furnishings for the Cartier chain of boutiques all over the world and for the Cartier Foundation in Paris, the interiors for the La Fenice theatre in Venice and the furnishings for public areas on the cruise ships of the Holland America Line and P&O North Sea Ferries. Molteni & C has a complex history: it has operated in the furniture sector since the early 1930s and has, over the years, become one of the best-known and most prestigious Italian companies. I
t is a state-of-the-art industry furniture that has always sought to combine the craftsman's knowledge with the latest modern production technology.
Molteni & C has not only worked to produce domestic furnishings; its Divisione Contract has completed major contracts all over the world, creating furnishings and interiors for collective accommodation, workplaces, public offices and cruise ships; it has been involved in hotels and holiday complexes, residences and health clinics, schools and hospitals, libraries and archives, banks and offices, museums and theatres. It has a special division that does this, capable of active collaboration with architects and designers developing and producing interior furnishings. It works in harmony with the other furniture companies in the group, such as Unifor and Dada, coordinating responsibilities and specialisations; it often works as the "main contractor", availing of the work of several companies and guaranteeing the quality of the end results.
Molteni & C products:
Single unitsTablesChairsBedsNight AccesoriesWardrobesUpholsterySystems
