When Enzo Catellani first founded his lighting company in 1989, he told the world he was a blacksmith named Carlo, and that his partner was the British racetrack architect Logan Smith. In truth, Carlo was Enzo’s father and Logan Smith… well, he was Enzo’s horse.

Fast forward twenty five years to the present and Enzo’s lighting company, Catellani & Smith, has become world renowned for it’s sculptural and technologically innovative fixtures. As for all the success going to his head… it doesn’t seem to have happened and Enzo’s focus remains grounded in the importance of craftsmanship and his own hands on process…

“A large part of my production is made up by pieces that require a great amount of craftsmanship: it’s the hand of the craftsman that builds them, his manual work that creates the imperfection, making a truly unique object. When I create a lamp, I always start off with a prototype; my laboratory is a workshop where I continually accumulate materials, components and objects… this is where everything [is] born… I assemble, weld, bend, shape… I need to feel the materials, to see how they play with light. Only at this point do I move on to the traditional design phase: feasibility, technical characteristics… it’s an idea of light, and the desire to tell about it, which guides me through… ”

A character to say the least, today, Enzo can still be caught crediting Catellani & Smith’s origins to a meeting of minds between, “a blacksmith and Logan Smith”. Whether you chalk that up to modesty, humor, quirk or something else entirely… it is an apt story for a man who’s approach to business, design and life seems to be just a little bit different than most. And now I invite you to take a peek inside his world to see exactly how and why…

Photos courtesy of Catellani & Smith