The new home of Stilnovo in Milan

In the heart of Milan, at Via Giovanni Boccaccio 15/A, almost 80 years after the company was founded in 1946 by Bruno Gatta, Stilnovo finally returns home, opening a space that showcases its historical icons and new products.
We met with Gianni Bolzan, CEO of Linea Light Group, and Nicola Russo and Dea Sgarbossa of studio RussoSgarbossa, Stilnovo's Art Directors, and asked them a few questions about the project path and the brand's development possibilities, stimulating a reflection on the Fuorisalone 2025 theme ‘Mondi Connessi’ (Connected Worlds), given the ability to connect skills and knowledge on a product with a historical matrix and a strong heritage.



In 2019, Linea Light Group, a Treviso-based company founded in 1976 and a pioneer in LED technology, with the acquisition of Stilnovo, adds an important piece to its strategy of relaunching its offer, bringing back to the market a historical and iconic brand that, thanks to the new management, looks to the future between icons and new products. In the last two years, Stilnovo has recorded significant growth in Italy and worldwide, especially in Scandinavia and the Far East. Today, thanks to the new showroom, it is once again a protagonist in Milan, thanks also to important commercial partnerships, the latest being with La Rinascente. Stilnovo's immediate future sees participation in Maison & Object in January 2025 and the launch of new product collections by spring 2025 with a presence at the next Fuorisalone.

The showroom presents itself as a unique sensorial experience, where architecture and design come together to create unforgettable emotions. The result of a major redevelopment by Studio Giuseppe Tortato Architetti, the showroom is spread over three levels, each designed to surprise and fascinate.
The showroom is divided into two main souls. A more ‘emotional’ part, dedicated to Stilnovo, celebrates decorative and design lighting, with scenographic proposals capable of fascinating and inspiring. The other, more ‘technical’ and dedicated specifically to Linea Light Group's i-LèD range, highlights the precision and quality of professional lighting, offering visitors the chance to explore and touch the most advanced technological solutions.


 

Thanks to the new and unique showroom, you have the opportunity to discover and get to know all the products that now make up the Stilnovo collections.
The two large windows on the street immediately tell the story of the brand, characterised by the combination of iconic and timeless design and modern technological solutions for lighting: on one side the famous Saliscendi by the Castiglioni brothers, a symbol of the design that has made Stilnovo an internationally recognised lighting brand, and on the other the latest addition, Torino, designed by Japanese designer Shigeaki Asahara, a meeting of minimalist lines and technical innovation.
Essential but welcoming, the interior space - called Stilnovo Atelier - traces the history of the brand through its most famous icons. Beginning with the re-editions of the 1950s, Galassia, Megaphone and Sputnik, passing through the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s with pieces such as Buonanotte, Periscopio, Minitopo, Valigia and Minibox, signed by great names in Italian design such as Giovanni Luigi Gorgoni, Danilo and Corrado Aroldi, Joe Colombo, Ettore Sottsass, Gae Aulenti and Piero Castiglioni to name but a few, and ending with the most recent collections: the Honey suspension lamp by Pio and Tito Toso that elegantly descends over the entrance and the scenic waterfall by Diphy, made with OptiLightTM technology, up to the evocative re-edition of Halley, fruit of the genius of Richard Sapper.


 

Insight
Mondi Connessi : Stilnovo, between heritage and innovation
 

Fuorisalone: What is the formula for connecting a brand and a family of products signed by design icons, distinctive and characterised like those in Stilnovo's catalogue, in the contemporary context by adapting production systems, certifications and LED sources?

Gianni Bolzan: The experience that we acquire in the field day after day is put at Stilnovo's disposal to update evergreen products with advanced technological solutions, exploiting the miniaturisation of LED sources and related components, with the energy savings and environmental sustainability benefits that derive from them, and the new production technologies that make it possible to reduce waste and use fewer raw materials - very important parameters for current design certifications - while rigorously maintaining the original aesthetics of the product.

RussoSgarbossa: Linea Light Group's production know-how has been fundamental in bringing the iconic Stilnovo products into the contemporary technological context in order to meet sustainable technical and production requirements. This is accompanied by the ability to read the markets and intercept their functional and stylistic demands in order to offer qualitatively excellent and timeless products.
 

Fuorisalone: Do you think that in the Stilnovo family of products, strongly characterised by an iconic and distinctive design and style, there is room in the future to connect new technologies, iot and Ai for example, thinking both about energy saving and sustainability and an interactive multi-function system, where form and function find a new balance?

Gianni Bolzan: Stilnovo has always looked at light as an inseparable combination of form and function, an approach recognised over decades of great lamps and prestigious collaborations. Linea Light Group shares with the ‘historical’ Stilnovo this vision, which today cannot be separated from the adoption of a sustainable production approach, but also from a simplified and intuitive management of the luminaires, fundamental both in large contract projects as well as in residential settings. Stilnovo's future direction will continue with this design philosophy, always with the aim of creating (or re-editing) extremely high-performance products for every context of use.

RussoSgarbossa: Stilnovo is attentive to the world around us and to new technologies. In the future it is possible that products will relate to us or to each other not only on a dimensional and stylistic level but also on a functional level to give us new ways of experiencing spaces. The objective, however, must remain the design of quality environments where light creates the right situation to relax, work or dine with friends.
 

Fuorisalone: What should we expect from Stilnovo in the coming years, are there any new reissues or projects in the drawer that will see the light, enriching the catalogue? And what is your criterion for choosing which products to focus on?

Gianni Bolzan: We will continue to strengthen the Stilnovo range, which currently consists of famous re-editions, but also of new proposals born from new collaborations, with the right mix of technology, aesthetics, attention to detail and materials. Today Stilnovo looks to the future with confidence, thanks to the support of a strongly consolidated Group and the work of many people who put infinite passion into their work every day.

RussoSgarbossa: The historical Stilnovo archive is full of projects from which to draw, and new re-editions will certainly be presented in the new launches. Historical products will always be flanked by new products to continue Stilnovo's dialogue between past and present and confirm the brand's transversality to fashions and time. Re-editions will have to be able to respond to today's qualitative challenges and to be inserted in spaces with different functions and styles.