The 60s

Between the late 1950s and early 1960s, Saporiti Italia began an industrial and commercial growth process.

Sergio Saporiti started advertising his products in the world’s first industrial design magazine, Stile Industria, created and directed by architect Alberto Rosselli in Milan.

In June 1965, Sergio Saporiti, without an appointment, visited the secretary of the Polytechnic of Milan and requested to meet Alberto Rosselli, professor of the university’s first industrial design course. Rosselli welcomed him, and a spontaneous collaboration began, which, over the next ten years, would forever transform Saporiti Italia—not only with several highly successful objects designed by Rosselli but, more importantly, with the research and modernity that Rosselli instilled indelibly into the company’s DNA.

Rosselli’s research for Montecatini and other industrial groups on plastics led to the creation of one of the most innovative and interesting collections in the history of Italian design: Jumbo and Moby Dick.

To celebrate and honor Alberto Rosselli’s work, Saporiti Italia organized the 100+1 – Alberto Rosselli x Saporiti Italia exhibition at the ADI Design Museum in Milan in October 2022, marking the 101st anniversary of his birth.

An exhibition on the entire research journey of Alberto Rosselli with Saporiti Italia, organized in the spaces of the Association for Industrial Design, of which Rosselli was one of the founders and the first president.
The exhibition was also named after the reproduction of 100 Jumbo armchairs, displayed in a large and scenographic glass bookshelf, reinterpreted in one hundred different colors chosen by ten major international architecture firms – Massimiliano & Doriana Fuksas, Marti Guixé, Toshiyuki Kita, Mauro Lipparini, Park Associati, Portman Architects, SITE James Wines, StorageMilano, S20M, Carlos Zapata.
The 101st piece in the exhibition title was a Moby Dick chaise longue.