Franco Raggi

Franco Raggi (1945-) is an important Italian architect and designer. The beginning of his career, immediately after his studies at the Milan Polytechnic and the first years of apprenticeship at the Nizzoli studio, were characterized in particular by a fervent cultural activity, carried out both in the pages of trade magazines (he was editor of Casabella from 1971 to 1976 and editor-in-chief of Modo from 1977 to 1983) and in the exhibition and curating activities at important institutions, from the Venice Biennale to the Milan Triennale. It was from the 1980s that his activity in product design became more intense, concentrated in particular on the product typology of lamps: emblematic in this sense is the long collaboration with FontanaArte, which began at the beginning of the decade at the invitation of Gae Aulenti, the brand's art director at the time, and continued over the years with great successes such as the Flûte series (1999). Other lighting brands he has collaborated with over the years include Luceplan (for which he co-designed the On Off lamp, part of the permanent collection of the MoMA in New York, together with Alberto Meda and Denis Santachiara), Barovier&Toso, Artemide and more recently Firmamento Milano, founded by the former owner of FontanaArte Carlo Guglielmi, while in the furniture sector, he designed furniture for Poltronova and Zeus-Noto. Starting in the 1990s, his architectural projects began to increase in size, leading him to design, among other things, the interiors of the Humanitas hospital (1996), the headquarters of the Gianfranco Ferré Foundation (1998) and the headquarters of the Techint group (2000), all located in Milan.