Model 600

For fifty years, Flos has been creating objects of light and igniting generations of dreams. Founded in Merano in 1962 by Dino Gavina and Cesare Cassina, it had a period of strong growth starting in the 1970s: it acquired Arteluce, a historic Italian lighting company, inheriting the designs of Gino Sarfatti, still produced today. In the following decades it absorbed other companies and increasingly expanded the already very rich portfolio of designer lamps. The principles of Flos have always been to identify with the masters of design, to discover new talents, to have technical and technological authority and to integrate into mass culture. Flos has always been a cutting-edge company: experimentation has made it possible to adopt revolutionary materials, such as the cocoon in the past, and more advanced technological solutions, represented today by OLED and sustainable materials.

Gino Sarfatti was born in Venice in 1912 into a wealthy family. He moved to Genoa and then enrolled in the faculty of Aereonaval Engineering, failing to complete his studies because of the sanctions imposed on Italy by the League of Nations with the 1935 naval blockade. He thus moved to Milan where he founded Arteluce in 1939 with some members of the Milanese society, soon becoming its general manager. In 1943 the bombing of Milan forced the family to flee to Switzerland, while Arteluce remained active, within permitted limits, with Vittoriano Viganò as director. Upon the artist's return to Italy, he founded ArCon "Arredamento Contemporaneo" in Rome in 1950, a retailer of top brands in the design world. In 1954 he won the Compasso d'Oro with Model 559, while he won the Gran Prix at the Milan Triennale for his Models 1063 and 1065. At the end of 1973 Sarfatti decided to sell Arteluce to Flos, thus ending his working career. He died in Gravedona in 1985.