Flos

Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni joined almost immediately and became the creative axis around which Flos built its reputation. Their first pieces for the company in 1962 included the Arco, a floor lamp with a 2.5-meter curved steel arm rising from a 65-kilogram Carrara marble base. The design eliminated the need for ceiling suspension while delivering overhead light, and the marble base, drilled through with a hole to allow a broomstick to serve as a handle for moving it, became one of the most instructive examples of Italian design wit. The Toio, also from 1962, used an actual 300-watt American car headlamp as its light source, mounted on a fishing-rod pole. Both are in the permanent collection of MoMA in New York.

In 1964 Sergio Gandini took over management of Flos and moved the company to Brescia. In 1973 he acquired Arteluce, the company that Gino Sarfatti had founded in 1939, bringing Sarfatti's entire catalogue into the Flos portfolio, most importantly the 2097 chandelier from 1958, a radiating structure of bare bulbs on brass arms that reinterpreted the Venetian chandelier with industrial frankness. Sergio Gandini died in 1999 and was succeeded by his son Piero, who expanded the designer roster to include Philippe Starck, Jasper Morrison, Michael Anastassiades, and Marcel Wanders. Flos was sold to Investindustrial in 2014 and later became part of Design Holding.

Achille Castiglioni and Pio Manzu designed the Parentesi in 1971, a lamp that travels vertically along a tensioned steel cable and received the Compasso d'Oro in 1979.

At Nordic auction, Flos appears almost entirely as lighting, 94 of the 100 recorded lots are lamps. The Castiglioni pieces dominate: Arco, Toio, Luminator, and the Cocoon pendant appear repeatedly across Bukowskis, Stockholms Auktionsverk, Uppsala Auktionskammare, and Goteborgs Auktionsverk. The Cocoon has produced the highest recorded result at 5,000 SEK, followed by the Arco at 4,400 SEK.