Parentesi 50

The history of the creation of "Parentesi" by Flos is that of a collaboration between two designers who passed the baton to each other without knowing each other: Pio Manzù, developer of the legendary Fiat 127, designed a floor lamp at the end of the sixties, whose light source was attached to a high pole. Held in place by a screw, the design provided for a flexible position of the lamp. After his tragic death in an accident in 1969, Pio Manzù's widow gave some sketches to Achille Castiglioni for further development – including the "Parentesi", Italian for "clamp". Castiglioni recognised the potential of the reduced lamp and thus changed Manzù's design only minimally – he exchanged the steel tube for a flexible steel cable that can be stretched to the ceiling with the help of a weight on the floor. In addition, he envisaged installing the lamp on a curved steel element that would stay in place without the need for further brackets and could be flexibly moved in position. "The sketch had all the elements that charmed Castiglioni. It was light, flexible and looked like a finished design," says Castiglioni's daughter Giovanna, the curator of the Achille Castiglioni Foundation. The final "Parentensi" was a complete success and received the renowned Italian industrial design prize "Compasso d'Oro" in 1979. This year, Flos celebrates the 50th anniversary of the classic luminaire with two colours that are also a tribute to the decade in which it was designed: Turquoise and Signal Orange. Reduced to the essentials, light and flexible, "Parentesi" is timeless in form and function. Fittingly, the control switch is located directly in the lamp sockets made of black elastomer. Moreover, the luminaire can also be dimmed.