A double victory for Flos at the 26th ADI Compasso d’Oro Awards

Michael Anastassiades was honoured with the prestigious award for the poetic light geometrics of his Arrangements, while, almost sixty years after its creation, the timeless and ingenious Arco lamp by the Castiglioni brothers was celebrated with the Product Lifetime Achievement Award, introduced this year.

Arrangements, the innovative and poetic modular collection of geometric lighting elements created for Flos in 2018 by Cypriot-born designer Michael Anastassiades, won the influential award with the following comments from the international jury: “A dance of minimalism, geometry, and technology, that beautifully interprets the LEDs and transforms them into pure emotion.”

The Arco lamp, designed in 1962 by brothers Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni, and recognised worldwide as one of design’s most ingenious and timeless pieces, also received a well-deserved recognition almost sixty years after its original conception.

The Product Lifetime Achievement Award, introduced at this edition of the Compasso d’Oro, celebrates Arco as the undisputed star of Italian design culture. Innovative, simple and adaptable, it is a combination of inspired creativity and skilled manufacture. The jury described it as “a stylistic innovation in the lighting sector that over time became an icon for Italian design around the world.”

Flos CEO Roberta Silva collected the awards with great pride and emotion, accompanied by designer Michael Anastassiades and by Carlo Castiglioni, son of Achille and president of the Foundation of the same name.

These two new ADI awards are the latest in a remarkable list of Compasso d’Oro won by Flos over the years for various extraordinary designs, which include the famous Parentesi by Achille Castiglioni and Pio Manzù in 1979; the eclectic May Day by Konstantin Grcic in 2001; and, more recently, the minimal and futuristic OK in 2016, once more by Grcic.