Bisazza, founded in 1956 by Renato Bisazza in Montecchio Maggiore (in the province of Vicenza), is one of the best-known global
glass mosaic brands. Furniture and furnishing accessories (produced since 2006) joined the brand's ornamental mosaics for interiors and exteriors. The company's more recent collections explore new decorative possibilities of materials like wood,
marble and ceramics. Internationally renowned designers have collaborated with Bisazza. Today the company has several single-brand shops in London, Milan, Paris and New York and a distribution network of almost three thousand shops worldwide.
Bisazza, a history of successful mosaics
The company was founded with the name of Vetricolor, like the first product - a highly resistant 20x20 cm coloured glass paste tessera, obtained through an industrial process, suitable for the exteriors of public, residential and commercial buildings. The success of Vetricolor set the stage for the brand's commercial expansion worldwide, supported - starting in the 1980s - by digital technologies and software to process designs and translate images into mosaic pixels. In 1989, after taking the name Bisazza, the company began to offer interior design products, when
Alessandro Mendini became the brand art director, from 1995 to 1999. The baton then passed to Fabio Novembre. Collaborations began with many designers, including Romeo Gigli, Ettore Sottsass, and Studio Job in addition to Tom Dixon, the
Campana brothers,
Aldo Cibic, Barnaba Fornasetti, Stefano Giovannoni, Tricia Guild,
India Mahdavi, Alessandro Mendini, Paola Navone, Fabio Novembre, Emilio Pucci, David Rockwell, Patricia Urquiola and Marcel Wanders. Bisazza Home, founded in 2006, is a collection of furniture and furnishing accessories. The Bisazza Bagno bathroom furniture line came out in 2011.
From glass to wood, via marble
Recently, Bisazza has begun exploring the expressive possibilities of various materials. Marmosaico is a collection of ten marble mosaic tile decorations designed by architect Carlo Dal Bianco. Collezione STUDIO KO is a line of marble patterns by the French architect duo Karl Fournier and Olivier Marty (founders of
Studio KO), both presented at 2022 Milan Design Week. The
Cementiles collection (2015) reinterprets traditional cement tiles designed by India Mahadavi, Paola Navone, Tom Dixon,
Carlo Dal Bianco, Jaime Hayon, Fratelli Campana, Greg Natale and David Rockwell. Wood (2016) is a collection of decorated oak parquet designed by Studio Job, Kiki van Eijk and Edward van Vliet.
The Bisazza Foundation
Renato Bisazza passed away in 2012, leaving the company in the hands of his children Piero and Rossella. That same year, the Bisazza Foundation for Design, Photography and Contemporary Architecture was inaugurated to collect and share the heritage of works created over time. The seven thousand square metre pavilion at the family factory in Montecchio Maggiore hosts temporary exhibitions and a rich collection of permanent works and installations. They include Arik Levy's "RockChamber", John Pawson's "One to One", the re-interpretation of Mendini's Proust armchair, entirely covered in polychrome tiles, and "Ritrovati Frammenti di Mosaico", a site-specific work by Ettore Sottsass from 2007 and Richard Meier's site-specific "Internal Time" installation. In 2016, the brand installed a 24-metre long mosaic mural with an iconic motif from the archives of the Emilio Pucci fashion house to enhance the collection.
