Main image: Carlo Molteni and team for Molteni Mondo (2024). Image: Jeff Burton.
—by Carli Philips
Over the span of 90 years, Italian furniture house Molteni&C has established itself a global design leader. Here, Carlo Molteni shares the key ingredients behind the brand’s sustained success.
Gio Ponti D.154.2 chair designed in 1953,
then reissued in 2015.
Renowned for its inimitable blend of Italian craftsmanship, innovation and elegance, Molteni&C has evolved from humble beginnings into a revered global brand. Along the way, it has collaborated with a roster of iconic designers—including Gio Ponti, Patricia Urquiola, Luca Meda, and its current creative director, Belgian architect Vincent Van Duysen—to integrate tradition with forward thinking.
When founders Angelo and Giuseppina Molteni launched their furniture making company in 1934, it comprised a small artisanal workshop in Brianza, north of Milan. Having found success early on with its classic pieces, it shifted in the 1940s (with the advent of industrialisation) to producing modern furniture on a mass scale, becoming one of Europe’s leading manufacturers.
Though the company continued to grow, Angelo never sacrificed quality for quantity; his eye remaining firmly on superior materials and attention to detail. His passion for Italian design expanding beyond the realms of furniture, he is credited with being part of the team that founded Milan’s Salone del Mobile. This dedication to craftsmanship was passed down to his son Carlo, who joined the family business at a young age and, now in his 80s, remains heavily involved as president. “It was a privilege for me knowing I could follow my father’s journey,” he reflects.
The company’s fortunes surged in the mid-1970s when it began supplying turnkey solutions for embassies and a prestigious hotel in the Middle East, giving rise to the Molteni Contract division. This new direction expanded the firm’s capabilities, establishing its position as a leader in both residential and commercial projects.
Carlo explains: “On one hand, we focus on customisation, and on the other, standardisation—a dual approach that continues to define our vision today.”
Augusto sofa (2023) designed
by Vincent Van Duysen.
Remarkably, the Molteni Group holding company remains privately owned, thriving as a third-generation family business with Carlo’s children involved in varying capacities: Giovanni as vice president of Molteni&C and Giulia as Molteni Group chief marketing officer. Francesca, a cinematographer, collaborates on occasional film projects. “My children grew up in this environment, their involvement was a natural outcome of that. I am pleased they enjoyed it so much that they chose to take active roles in the company,” he says.
While innovation and research are at the forefront of the Molteni approach, Carlo emphasises “one thing that remains unchanged is quality” and although the company is constantly in motion, its trademark elegance and quiet luxury endure. Collaborations with esteemed architects and designers have been a constant source of inspiration and fresh perspective. “It’s important to create synergies with professionals who share the values and fundamentals of Molteni&C,” he enthuses.
“We bring together their ideas, tradition, art and technology, which inspires us and pushes us to think ahead.”
This creative ethos can be traced to the 1960s, when the brand began working with Italian design luminaries of the time such as Aldo Rossi, Afra and Tobia Scarpa, and Luca Meda. These important relationships and others are now celebrated in Molteni Minds, a video series highlighting important long-term partners including lighting designer Michael Anastassiades and Italian architect and designer Michele De Lucchi.
Emerging talents also have a place within Molteni&C’s vision, fuelling the brand’s dynamism. Award-winning Milanese designer Francesco Meda describes being awestruck by the opportunity to collaborate with Italian design royalty; “When I started the collaboration, it felt like a great honour because [they] usually work with more seasoned designers. It was brave of such a big company to approach a young designer like me.”
One of Molteni&C’s most significant projects in recent years has been the re-edition of iconic pieces by legendary architect Gio Ponti, following an extensive research process that involved an exclusive agreement with Ponti’s heirs and archives to bring his work to life. Crafted using advanced manufacturing techniques, these re-editions play a key role in preserving Italian design history, given the originals were made for private clients and never produced en masse. Indeed, without Molteni&C’s intervention, Ponti’s designs may have been lost forever.
This balance of past, present and future also comes together at the Molteni Museum, located on the grounds of the company’s Giussano headquarters. Redesigned in 2021 by Tel Aviv-born designer and longtime collaborator Ron Gilad, the immersive light-filled space honours those who have invented and crafted the products, prototypes, stories and images that define the company’s legacy.
Today, Molteni&C has flagship stores in over 100 countries, including one in Melbourne and a new location set to open in Sydney’s Surry Hills in 2025. Carlo describes the store design as a physical embodiment of the company’s commitment to tradition, quality and sustainability—thanks to the vision of Van Duysen, who joined Molteni&C in 2016.
To mark its 90th anniversary, the firm recently released Molteni Mondo: An Italian Design Story, a book documenting its journey from post-war ingenuity to modern luxury. “In this important year,” Carlo concludes, “we want to share our goal for the future, which is to spread the culture of quality living throughout the world.”