Parentesi 50
Designed by Achille Castiglioni & Pio Manzù
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of its long-lasting best seller Parentesi, Flos reinterprets the iconic lamp with two new colors that celebrate its authors: Achille Castiglioni and Pio Manzù.
Flos selected new colors – Turquoise and Signal Orange – for the Parentesi special edition, celebrating the milestone birthday of the design by Pio Manzù and Achille Castiglioni, two men who never met each other. The lamp originally was born from the reinterpretation by Castiglioni of an original drawing by Manzù (who died in a car crash in 1969, two years before the Parentesi came to being) and it has fascinated generations of design enthusiasts all over the world.
The Colors
Turquoise and Signal Orange were singled out after a careful study of the two maestros’ work, carried out by the Flos design curators Calvi Brambilla with Achille Castiglioni’s daughter Giovanna and with Pio Manzù’s son Giacomo Manzoni.
The particular Turquoise that is applied to the special edition Parentesi is one that Achille Castiglioni was very fond of: “he had seen it on a box of paper clips which he kept on his desk,” recalls Giovanna, “and he loved it so much that he used it to decorate all the doors of our flat in the early 70s.” Signal Orange was, on the contrary, the color that Pio Manzù used for all his car prototypes: a constant in his work as an automotive designer throughout the years.
The two colors are complementary to each other. So, which each is a homage to one of the creators, they also connect Castiglioni and Manzù together once again in a subtle and cultivated way, and further fuel the story of this incredible object that was born, from the very start, from an impossible dialogue between two design geniuses who never actually met.
The Packaging
The Parentesi Special Edition is a deep exploration of design culture that includes every detail of both lamp and packaging. When it was launched, Parentesi was sold in a ‘naked’ packaging, two plastic shells made in a single mold. Although no-one knows how much of Manzù’s work was known to Castiglioni, it’s remarkable to notice that the transparency of the packaging, which gives dignity to the individual elements, recalls how the FIAT car designer Manzù exhibited mechanical parts at trade fairs: on the wall, like works of art.
The History
Parentesi is also a celebration of collaboration and respect for mutual creativity. When Achille Castiglioni received on his desk the sketch that Pio Manzù’s widow had managed to get to him, he was triggered by the idea of a light-emitting tin with slits that could move up and down a floor-to-ceiling pole, turn 180 degrees, and be blocked with a screw. Parentesi was born from that original idea but also changed in a dramatic way in the final design: the pole became a metal line, the tin a mere bulb, the screw was replaced with a tubular that caused friction along the line and blocked the lamp in position, the tension was guaranteed using a boat tensioner and a 5 kg weight that didn’t even touch the floor.
“Despite the amazing amount of work that he and Flos’ technicians had to put into making Parentesi an actual product, Castiglioni decided to equally share its paternity with Pio Manzù,” recalls his son Giacomo today. “It was a gesture of great respect towards the value of original thinking that says a lot about him and about the standing that design innovation had in Italy at that time.”
It is the same respect that today Flos applied in the development of the special edition Parentesi. In the choice of colors, as we said, and where to apply them. But also in the remaking of the original packaging.
Hanging from the ceiling to the floor (where it stays in position thanks to a 5kg weight), it provides a 360-degree illumination that is totally customizable: its light source – a simple lightbulb – slides up and down a metal line. In that, it’s a perfect synthesis of opposites: a hymn to movement and stillness, of design and engineering, of sophistication and simplicity.
