S.C.

Your long collaboration with Boffi began when you were still a young designer. Shortly after you started, Roberto Gavazzi, who was almost the same age, joined the company and decided to create his own entrepreneurial project starting from this existing reality. You once wrote: “Boffi was like a lady who was getting on in age. She was once quite beautiful but now a little less so.”* How did you revitalize the original DNA of this “lady,” a company that was already one of the established players of Italian design?

P.L.

I can say that we very calmly started to work on building up a manufacturing enterprise. There was a certain amount of brazenness and we were a bit presumptuous given our young age. A year earlier I had been brought into the company by Paolo Boffi, who was already a leading expert in the most interesting and innovative processes and technologies, having already undertaken some new and important projects and products. In addition to designing products, you could say I opted to focus first off on updating and rationalising the infrastructure behind the components for products. When Roberto arrived, he was perfectly in line with this industrialcentric strategy. What’s more, he brought an ambitious vision that was not only about Making Boffi Great Again, but above all transforming it from a kitchen manufacturer into one that made furniture and accessories with a focus first on the living area and then the entire home. It seemed like an opportunity that I could dedicate a lot of energy to so the three of us enthusiastically got to work, each one focusing on their skill set and responsibilities while always making sure to support each other.

S.C.

Was it difficult starting out? We are talking about the beginning of the 1990s, a rather peculiar moment right after the postmodern experiences of Alchimia and Memphis, which brought a lot of international attention to Italian design, especially in furniture, but where there was little in the way of an economic payoff.

P.L.

As you know, in business you sometimes run into issues – whether due to laziness or bad habits – that slow things down or block important changes. One of these problem areas was an old-fashioned distribution setup. A brand that was rapidly expanding like Boffi needed to clearly define its new identity since we had decided at the outset to design the new kitchens with a very architectural, and not formalist, approach – some like to call it minimalist but for me it’s more about being precise. Instead of these traditional distributors who did not understand this new bold identity, we chose to move to direct distribution, with spaces in Paris and then in Milan in Via Solferino.