Poliform: an interview with Alberto Spinelli, Aldo Spinelli and Giovanni Anzani

It’s been interesting and stimulating interpreting Stefano Boeri’s brief. At the press conference, all the companies were asked to rethink themselves, as regards the usual display requisites that we are familiar with during the week of Salone del Mobile.Milano, thinking not in terms of square metre for stands but in linear metres.

We tried to figure out the best way of illustrating our lifestyle concept, we dug deep. After many questions, we began to build a philosophy, we tried to work on how to bring a new vision and a new life to our furnishings. That’s why we decided to take the project we gifted ourselves to celebrate our 50th anniversary as our starting point, the one curated by the international photographer Paolo Roversi, and showing it at supersalone.

We asked Roversi to interpret the way in which he saw us, the company and its products. Or rather to apply his modern vision to Poliform’s traditional artisan production. The images were then gathered into a book - Time, Light, Space, curated by Rizzoli, and available from an international circuit of bookshops.

We tried to make a multimedia representation of Paolo Roversi’s narration. An immersive project will bring to life the linear wall provided by the Salone, allowing visitors to explore, experience and hear for themselves the path the brand has taken over the last 50 years. We are proud of having been able to convey and communicate our values to the outside world, in a different manner.

The pandemic has helped our sector - a bit of a juggernaut - to speed up some of the processes that already existed. This allowed us to accelerate our procedures, not just internally, with live streaming conferencing tools, and to speed up our communication. We made major investments that will be evident at the start of the supersalone event, during which we decided to narrate this step change.

Many projects took shape during this period. We laid down the bases for the next few years. What happened helped us to focus much better and to acquire a broader business outlook.

We’re pleased that such a young person has taken up this role. A completely different outlook was perhaps the only way to go because it meant a new departure in terms of timing and content. Being so disruptive was the only solution. Her decision to involve the city, to depart from previous logics, was a brave and successful one, it allowed the companies to shrug off their negativity – when supersalone was announced we were still in the red zone – and gave them a new lease of life.

Over the last few months, Poliform hasn’t stopped, we’ve continued to present and communicate new products to our distributors. We wanted to send a message of continuity in terms of research and design; we didn’t want to still be chained to the timescales dictated by our sector. The market is driving and leading sales, we’ve launched a lot of products. We will be bringing out new products for September that will be featured in our city centre showroom.

Companies have adapted and so has the end user. It will be interesting to see how things have changed, how we have evolved. The message we wanted to convey to our network was one of reassurance. We are a company made up of people. Human value is fundamental for us.