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Sergio Mazza
In 1959, the architect Sergio Mazza (1931) founded with the aeronautical engineer Ernesto Gismondi (1931) the Artemide brand in Milan, specialised in lighting equipment. Despite the artisan start (in the small space of the company in Via Moscova the lamps are worked by metallists and glassmakers, and the first catalogue contains only six models), the beginnings proved fruitful: in a short time Artemide established itself as one of the most qualified brands in its field, by collaborating with designers such as Magistretti, BBPR, Gio Ponti, Livio Castiglioni, and by laying the foundations of its future expansions. In the 1960s, Mazza designed his most famous lamps for the brand, those in nickel-plated brass, opaline glass and crystal: these are cult objects and the heritage of prestigious international museums, from suspension lamps such as Delta and Tau to the Clio wall light, from the Sigma ceiling lamp to the Alfa table lamp. The peculiarity of Artemide's products of that time is that on the one hand they guarantee the essential aesthetics and technologies of industrial design, but at the same time they are able to express the Italian tradition, through the choice and sophisticated processing of materials.
