A pencil sketch. Two great designers who worked together but never met. A 50-year-old bestseller now reissued in the colours they loved. The story of Parentesi is a very special one – built on ingenuity, a great deal of respect and a touch of magic. Here on the blog, we'd like to share it with you.
Good design creates connections between people, objects and technologies. And when it produces connections that should really be impossible, a certain magic emerges. It's a word that springs to mind straight away when you think of the story of Parentesi – the classic lamp by Pio Manzù and Achille Castiglioni, produced by Flos since 1971 and now, for its 50th anniversary, released in two new colours: turquoise and signal orange.
The origins of Parentesi: an extraordinary collaboration
Parentesi is based on creative ingenuity driven by a passion for everyday objects – and on an extraordinary collaboration that wasn't really a collaboration at all.
The story of Parentesi begins with the early death of the young designer Pio Manzù in 1969. He was a unique talent, the inventor of the first multi-purpose vehicle and the creator of enduring automotive icons such as the FIAT 127. Castiglioni knew his work, but the two never met.
Thanks to Manzù's widow, Castiglioni received his drawings, and one of them caught his eye. It showed a slotted cylindrical can emitting light, resting on a rod that connected ceiling and floor: thanks to a screw, it could make a half turn, move up and down and stop. This was the original idea behind Parentesi.
A light in motion: advanced technology down to the smallest detail
Manzù's drawings showed the potential for movement that Castiglioni wanted to unlock. To do this, he worked closely with the technicians at Flos. He replaced the rod with a metal wire which, deflected by a tube, creates friction: this keeps the lamp in position without the need for a screw. The wire is held taut between a turnbuckle and a 5 kg weight.
Parentesi is light, affordable and dynamic. It's flexible and contemporary, yet also timeless, because it sparks the imagination: the light source is a simple bulb that rotates through 360 degrees and draws all the attention. Above all, though, Parentesi is a tool for co-creation. "The idea was: you buy it, you assemble it," explains Giovanna.
"Parentesi comes in 'naked' packaging – two plastic shells made in a single mould. In 1965, my father used the same moulding technique to make promotional packaging for FIAT," says Giacomo. The transparency of the packaging, which lends dignity to the individual components, recalls the way Manzù displayed the mechanical parts of cars at trade fairs: on the wall, like works of art.
A respectful collaboration across many years and levels
"Castiglioni decided to share the authorship of Parentesi with his late colleague, to honour the value of his intuition as well as the design and technical skills that turned it into a finished product. A noble gesture that teaches respect for ideas in a world where that is often lacking," says Giacomo Manzù.
That respect is also reflected in the decision by Flos's design curators, the architect duo Calvi Brambilla, to draw on the imagination of Parentesi's two creators for the special 50th anniversary edition. The pair chose turquoise and signal orange using a philological approach.
"The first colour was dear to Castiglioni, as he had used it in the interior of his home. The second was the colour Manzù used for his prototypes," the architects explain. "We applied them not only to the tube but also to the base, just as it was coloured in the original design. Even the packaging from the 1970s has been reworked and reintroduced, together with the round booklet that sits under the base of the lamp."
This makes the reinterpretation of Parentesi not just an exercise in nostalgia but another chapter in the dialogue between two design maestros: a conversation that has been going on for 50 years.
