OLIVARI B. SPA

Throughout the 100-plus years of its manufacturing history, Olivari has earned distinction for the quality of its products and the reputation of its brand. From generation to generation, the Olivari family has passed down the attention for detail, the quest for innovation, and above all, a passion for working. In 1911, Battista Olivari founded the company in Borgomanero, Novara, where the factory is still located, and where the entire production process of the handles still takes place today. In 1926, Battista’s wife Antonietta Ramelli took over the helm of the family business. She was a pioneer of female entrepreneurship. In the 1930s, the company began its first collaborations with the two most important Italian architects at the time, Marcello Piacentino and Gio Ponti. After World War II, the company, now led by the brothers Ernesto, Ambrogio and Luigi, contributed to the reconstruction, working side by side with the masters of Italian architecture: Albini, Gardella, Mangiarotti and BBPR. The handles they custom designed for their new buildings were highly elegant and inventive objects that became fixtures of the Olivari range. In the 1960s, Olivari began working with the protagonists of the nascent Italian design scene S.Asti, Luigi Caccia Dominioni, Joe Colombo, Monti GPA, M. Nizzoli. On the industrial side, the company decided it needed a new, more extensive production plant with cutting-edge die-casting machinery to rise to the challenge of a growing market. The designers’ visionary, futuristic ideas and the relevant stimulating work environment led to formally and technically innovative handles. Bica, the first anodised aluminium handle, came out in 1959. Boma, the first plastic handle, was launched in 1970. In the 1980s, the third generation of the Olivari family progressively came to the fore. The brothers Antonio, Giovanni, Giuseppe, Carlo and Enrico were the company’s new blood, and they forged ahead with design-related and technological evolution.