Fiam's glass furniture grows from China to Africa

And yet it bends. Vittorio Livi was convinced of this when he looked at the glass furnace in his company in Pesaro. Glass can be bent, a possibility never attempted before, making furnishing objects. It was a certainty due to the will to succeed, to that capacity for vision and empirical innovation that is the key to success for many Italian-made entrepreneurs. It was necessary to beat the competition with a new idea, with a product that no one had ever tried. This is how Onda Pouf was born, a service stool conceived and created by Livi's father, Vittorio, for sitting in front of the oven, reproposed in a limited series last year, for the company's 50th anniversary.

Thus began the history of Fiam as we know it today: a marked change from its origins, when the acronym stood for Fabbrica Italiana Accessori Mobili. Then changed, in the new era of folding glass, to Fabbrica Italiana Arredamenti Moderni.

'My father had invested everything he had to take over the share of the partner and try the gamble of the new route. We had to be careful about everything, even not to waste the letterhead,' says his son Daniele, who has been the company's managing director since 2014. Vittorio Livi's debut as an entrepreneur took place with a partner, in 1973, producing glass for furniture, to be sold to furniture makers. And he still had the partner when he started producing curved glass, but always for third parties.

Then the decision for a breakthrough: 'to make real furniture in glass, which in the 1960s was produced in wood or metal. A real gamble, a world to be explored,' says Daniele Livi. "He designed the first collections, then we started to establish ourselves and collaborations with great architects began". The list is long and the most famous names collaborate with Fiam. In 2022, the Ghost armchair, designed by Cini Boeri and Tomu Katayanagi, in 12 millimetre curved glass, won the Compasso d'Oro alla Carriera award. It is one of the objects on display in the Glass Museum, Spazio Miralfiore, inside Villa Miralfiore, the period residence that the Livi family bought in the early 1990s, which is the company's representative centre as well as an exhibition space. A museum of works of art created in glass by great contemporary artists, Pomodoro, Isgrò, Munari, Colombo, Bay, to name but a few. Also on display are objects from all the most important currents of Italian and international design from the 1970s to today, with designs by Vico Magistretti, Philippe Stark, Danny Lane, Daniel Libeskind, and many others. Approximately 60 works, plus an exhibition of the current Fiam collection.

The first part of the villa dates back to 1260, the last owner being Count Alberto di Castelbarco, who sold it to the Livi family. "We wanted to insert the modernity and transparency of glass in the context of the Renaissance frescoes. The Italian economy is born from beauty and historical tradition. Preserving and managing it well creates an effective Made in Italy image by enhancing our products. It is a commitment that we share together with Adsi, the Association of Historical Residences, a constant work of recovery of assets in inland areas of the country, for the benefit of the community,' says Daniele Livi. Anticipating that with the next Salone del Mobile, in Milan, "an event in which we strongly believe," there will be a novelty: before or after the exhibition, customers will be taken to Pesaro, to Villa Miralfiore, "precisely to see the cultural and artistic context in which our production is expressed.