Fabio Lenci

Fabio Lenci (born in Rome in 1935) is an Italian designer whose work spans industrial design, interior architecture, bathroom design, lighting, and nautical design. He began his professional career in the early 1960s, opening several modern furniture showrooms in 1960 and founding his own interior architecture and design studio in Rome in 1962. His earliest awarded projects included kitchen designs from this period.

In 1967, Lenci started designing for Harvey Guzzini, followed by a collaboration with Fratelli Guzzini, marking the beginning of his long-standing relationship with the Guzzini group. At the end of 1970, he was invited by Virgilio Guzzini and Gaetano Clementi to collaborate with Polivar in Pomezia as a consultant on the development of a bathtub made from unconventional materials.

In 1971, Fabio Lenci became the first designer to join the newly founded company Teuco, initiating a collaboration that has remained productive over many decades. For Teuco, he designed several landmark bathroom products, including the well-known Tonda acrylic shower, contributing significantly to the company’s international recognition in bathroom design.

Within the field of lighting, Lenci designed several lamps for Harvey Guzzini, including the Focus series, the Luciala series, the Lampione floor lamp, and this Birghitta table lamp, named after his wife. He also designed lighting for other manufacturers such as Zumtobel and Ilform.

From 1973 onwards, Lenci collaborated closely with Giovanna Talocci, with whom he designed bathroom accessories for Fratelli Guzzini, sanitary ware, bathtubs and showers for Teuco, and faucets for companies such as Fornara e Maulini. The Lenci–Talocci studio also worked on high-end interior projects, including VIP aircraft interiors for Frau Aviation (Poltrona Frau), as well as inflatable boats and nautical equipment for Lomac.

An enthusiast of nautical sports, Lenci was directly involved in boat design and construction, and in 1991 he founded Lenci Marine, further expanding his activities into the marine sector.

Alongside his professional practice, Fabio Lenci has been active in design education. He taught industrial design and product design at the Istituto Europeo di Design (IED) in Rome and, from 1987 onward, at Istituto Quasar, also in Rome. Since 1994, he has served as President of the CNAD (Consiglio Nazionale del Design).

Harvey Guzzini / iGuzzini illuminazione

In the late 1950s the Guzzini family from Recanati (Marche, Italy) set up a small workshop for enamelled copper objects. On 30 June 1959 the brothers Raimondo, Giovanni, Virgilio, Giuseppe and Giannunzio Guzzini, sons of Mariano Guzzini, officially founded Harvey Creazioni for the production of decorative copperware. The name “Harvey” was inspired by the 1950 film Harvey with James Stewart and his imaginary rabbit friend.

Very soon the company moved from the ground floor of the family home in Recanati to a new factory in nearby Le Grazie, where the first lamps were developed. Early lighting models were designed by external designers such as Karl Roters and Charles F. Joosten (Josteen), who had already worked for Fratelli Guzzini on plastic tableware.

In the early 1960s Harvey became a true family business when more brothers joined, and in 1962 industrial designer Luigi Massoni was brought in to lead the design team. Massoni worked for both Fratelli Guzzini and Harvey Guzzini until the mid-1970s and played a key role in the transition from enamelled copper to moulded plastics such as polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA). Under his direction the company developed many of the iconic “space age” domestic lamps that defined the brand.

During the 1960s and 1970s Harvey Guzzini became one of the standard-bearers of Italian mid-century lighting design. The in-house design office, often referred to as Studio 6G or Ufficio Progetti, and external designers created a long series of acrylic pendant, table and floor lamps that combined coloured domes, chrome details and multi-light switching. These domestic lamps were distributed widely in Europe and beyond, for example through Habitat in the UK.

Design House

In the late 1960s Harvey Guzzini also introduced the Design House (DH) label for a more explicitly “design-led” range. Under this name, the company presented its products at international exhibitions and in dedicated Design House catalogues. Lamps shown in one of these catalogues include Alicante, Noppo, Ibis, Azalea, Cigno, Moon, Selene, Poliedra, Focus, Tam Tam, Squared, Taw, Cespuglio, Nastro, Moana, Nitia, Lampione, Lucciola, Piuma and Diaframma. In 1969, Harvey Guzzini also opened a Harvey Guzzini – DH store in central Milan, underlining the more design-oriented positioning of this range.

Harveiluce

Around the same period, the Harveiluce name appeared on several models, sometimes alongside or later replaced by Harvey Guzzini or iGuzzini labels. Harveiluce was thus used only for a relatively short time in the late 1960s and early 1970s, mainly as another trade name for the same family of designs that would later be marketed under the iGuzzini brand.

DOMA

In the 1970s iGuzzini also used the Doma name for a line of plastic furniture and accessories. The Doma collection included space age storage trolleys, coat racks, chairs, ashtrays and decorative spheres, often in injection-moulded ABS with metal details, designed by Luigi Massoni, Dino Pelizza, Fabio Lenci and others. These pieces were marketed under the same corporate umbrella as Harvey Guzzini and iGuzzini lighting, and the iGuzzini logo introduced in 1974 covered products sold under sub-brands such as DH, Doma and Atelier.

iGuzzini

In 1974 the company name was changed from Harvey Guzzini to iGuzzini, and in 1981 to iGuzzini illuminazione. From the mid-1970s onwards the firm progressively shifted its focus from domestic “space age” lighting to architectural and technical lighting for public and professional spaces. Today iGuzzini is an international lighting group based in Recanati, known for collaborations with architects and designers such as Gae Aulenti, Gio Ponti, Rodolfo Bonetto, Piero Castiglioni and many others, and since 2019 it has been part of the Swedish Fagerhult Group.

In 2022–2023 iGuzzini launched the iGuzzini Echoes programme: a series of re-editions of classic 1960s–1970s designs, updated with LED technology and recycled / recyclable materials. The first models to return were Polsino (Gio Ponti, re-edition 2022) and Zurigo (Luigi Massoni, re-edition 2022), followed by Nitia (Rodolfo Bonetto, re-edition 2023), Clan (Flash, Bud, Clan) and Sorella (all credited to the historic Harvey / Harveiluce design team, re-edition 2023).

Although the brand identity and product range have evolved towards professional lighting, the vintage Harvey Guzzini domestic lamps from the 1960s and 1970s – as well as the recent Echoes re-editions – remain an important chapter in the history of Italian plastic design.

Designers

Designers who worked for the company include: Luigi Massoni, Luciano Buttura, Sergio Brazzoli, Ermanno Lampa, Giuseppe Cormio, Emilio Fabio Simion, Karl Roters, Charles F. Joosten, Fabio Lenci, Bruno Gecchelin, Gio Ponti, Rodolfo Bonetto, Gae Aulenti, Piero Castiglioni, Carlo Bimbi, Nilo Gioacchini, Antonella Ducci Valera, Carlo Urbinati, Felice Ragazzo, Ennio Lucini, Cesare Casati, Gianfranco Frattini, Ambrogio Pozzi, Francesco Piccaluga, Aldo Piccaluga, Makio Hasuike, Renzo Piano, Dean Skira, Maurici Ginés, Artec Studio, Enzo Eusebi, Jean-Michel Wilmotte, Arup, Norman Foster, Mario Cucinella, Massimo Iosa Ghini, Massimiliano e Doriana Fuksas, Jean-Marie Duthilleul, Roberto Pamio, Paul Andreau, Laura Maria Mandelli, Giuseppe De Goetzen, Franco Bresciani, Studio D.A.

Fabio Lenci Birghitta table lamp – 1972 catalogue picture

Fabio Lenci Birghitta table lamp together with the Fiona and Sorella desk lamps and a Full ashtray in a 1972 catalogue photo. Designs by Fabio Lenci, Luigi Massoni and Studio 6G.