Founded by Sergio Saporiti in 1948, Saporiti Italia is one of the most original and innovative companies in the Italian and international furniture industry, with the merit of having produced over the years some of the most sophisticated and advanced furniture in the history of Italian design. The company is still run today by the Saporiti family and in its activity it retains its original characteristic, the recognisable leitmotif in all its creations: each new piece is a story in itself. Capturing the balance of time and anticipating the future are the challenge and vocation that Saporiti Italia has set itself and pursued since its inception. Every object created and built is slightly ahead of its time and is destined to last, both in form and function, until the next era. The company has collaborated with some of the most important international designers such as Paul Andreu, Toshiyuki Kita, Fuksas Architects, Daniel Libeskind, Mauro Lipparini, Park Associati, John Portman Associates, Shin Takamatsu, S20M, James Wines / SITE, Carlos Zapata and others. Saporiti Italia products have been exhibited in the world’s most prestigious design and art museums such as the MoMA in New York, the Victoria & Albert in London, the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco, the Milan Triennale, and the Venice Architecture Biennale. The Saporiti Italia Group, with offices in Italy, Dubai, Singapore and Lagos, operates as a Design Service Provider offering tailor-made solutions for the realisation of interior projects of the highest level, taking care of every phase of the creative and construction process, from design to production, from logistics to installation.
RAFFAELE SAPORITI, PRESIDENT AND MANAGING DIRECTOR, TOLD PLATFORM ABOUT THE EVOLUTION OF SAPORITI ITALIA.
Saporiti Italia is a company that has marked many of the steps in the history of Italian design. What is the company’s core business today?
Raffaele Saporiti: The core business of the Saporiti Italia Group is the creation of turnkey furniture interiors, from design to execution (‘Design & Build’). We operate as a ‘design service provider’ offering tailor-made solutions for the realisation of highend furnishing projects in the residential, hospitality, commercial and institutional sectors. Thanks to a very dynamic and flexible structure, we can follow all phases of an interior project, from conception to technical design, from production to installation and after-sales service. Saporiti Interiors is our contract division that provides tailormade solutions for high-end furniture projects. We realise projects according to our customers’ needs and expectations, executing and coordinating work from concept design to shop
drawings, from production to logistics, from installation to after-sales service. Saporiti AeD is our architecture and design arm that creates innovative concepts for small or large projects,
collaborating with a select panel of international architects, designers, engineers and market specialists, able to propose the most advanced and elaborate solutions for any development. Saporiti AeD’s design management activities range from the creation of a marketing concept to the technical development of a sophisticated architectural or interior design project.
While maintaining strong links with Italy and its design history, to which Saporiti has contributed so much, the company has had a good history of internationalisation for several decades. What has this meant and what does it mean for you?
R.F: Since the early 2000s, Saporiti Italia has established a number of international bases. This choice was made in order to
manage our contract activities; it is precisely our foreign bases that enable us to execute and follow even complex projects all over the world. In addition to the Saporiti Italia Hub in Besnate, in the province of Varese, the company has established its own Sales and Project Management facilities in Dubai, Singapore and Lagos, and Project Management offices in Monte Carlo, London and New York. By 2024, the Project Management offices will be transformed into true international bases, together with a new facility in Shanghai, which will be operational by the end of 2023. It is precisely this capillarity that allows us to realise our projects, ensuring that they are developed according to our customers’ needs and expectations, carrying out and coordinating the work in all phases from concept design to after-sales service.
Saporiti Italia is therefore a manufacturer of design furniture, a group capable of proposing itself as a ‘design service provider’ and then it is a company with an extraordinary ability and willingness to make and support culture and research. What are your activities in this area?
R.F: Saporiti Italia has tried to combine its production activities with cultural activities and an ongoing commitment to research. It is very important for us to support initiatives that make culture in the world of architecture and design, and we do this by pursuing a project,that of designing and making chairs for public spaces, which are a point of connection between architecture and design, between exteriors and interiors. We are very fascinated by the object of the bench, because it is a piece of furniture that unites the sphere of architecture of living spaces together with that of design, it is an object on which people stand, meet and come into contact with others and the space that surrounds them, whether it is outside or inside. This is a theme that is very dear to us and on the basis of which we have realised some interesting projects in various parts of the world. We have made benches in office lobbies, residential towers and public spaces. Our benches are hosted at the Arnaldo Pomodoro Foundation and the Museo del Novecento in Milan. We are Main Partner of the exhibition ‘Andy Warhol. Serial Identity’ at MA*GA in Gallarate, where we placed our iconic Jumbo chairs in a metaphorical dialogue between the pop aesthetics of the great American artist and one of the symbols of Italian design from the 1960s. In 2022 we organised the exhibition ‘100+1. Alberto Rosselli Saporiti Italia’ to pay homage, 101 years after his birth, to Alberto Rosselli, the architect and designer who was art director of Saporiti Italia for many years and who marked the history of Italian design. This year, we chose to continue this path, to communicate our activities to the architecture and design community, to support your initiative “The New Together”, and also for this event we decided to design and realise a bench that would be a “functional” object for the spaces and the installation. In the marvellous spaces of the Scuola Grande della Misericordia, Saporiti Italia designed with Marco Ciarlo Associati a series of benches perfectly integrated with the installation and events of “The New Together”. Saporiti Italia knows the architect well, with whom it realised the Noberasco headquarters in Carcare. For the Platform event, Marco Ciarlo has designed APTA, an interesting bench, which ‘adapts’ to any specific situation, because it is made of a steel wire mesh, which can be filled with different materials or ‘materials’, or even with objects, to make it ‘site specific’ for each place or situation of use.
