Massimo Zanaboni, hereditary furniture maker, is at the helm of the family factory ZANABONI, which has been producing classic-style furniture since the 1960s. He told us how the production process is organized.
Passing the gallery Magazine: N11 (199) 2014
ZANABONI factory is located in the town of Meda (twenty kilometers from Milan). “On Einaudi Street, 34,” says company owner Massimo Zanaboni. “In case your readers come to us.” By the way, this is quite doable (by prior arrangement). We show a showroom located here, and conduct a tour of the production. Factory is the most important part of our life. ” Meda is located in the region of Brianza, where all the major Italian furniture factories are located. The region owes its fame ... crop failure. As they say, there would be no happiness, but misfortune helped. At the beginning of the XIX century, during the Napoleonic wars, local farmers suffered such losses that they decided to abandon agriculture in favor of carpentry.
The company ZANABONI was founded in the 1960s by Vittorio Zanaboni, father of Massimo. And although he had long since transferred all the affairs to his son, he comes into the workshops almost every day. “He oversees,” Massimo smiles. “In the post-war years, the Italian industry went forward by leaps and bounds, and my father joined the process without delay. The factory was originally conceived as a furniture. We were not a restoration workshop, we were not engaged in fittings and other things, but immediately began to produce sofas. ” The first collection of the brand was devoted to living room furniture, made in the style of Italian Baroque. The factory still specializes in furniture in the style of Louis, and a few years ago, Massimo designed the contemporary collection. “We need to keep up with the times,” he says. “We use traditional processing techniques, but in design we focus on more modern forms.” In general, the factory works as in the 1960s: all the basic operations are still done manually, the frames are also made of solid wood, and the upholstery is made of expensive fabrics, leather, and suede. In its segment ZANABONI is one of the best. When asked to tell about a single, most characteristic thing for the factory profile, Massimo calls a truly unique item — a chest of drawers inlaid with 16,000 records of Australian mother of pearl (of course, from a limited series).
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