The paper attempts a first overview on the history of the Saporiti company, active in
Besnate (Varese) since the immediate post-war period. The analysis is carried out within
the broader framework of the need not only to recognise design as a cultural asset, but
also to set up a network of interconnected, accessible archives, supported by more efficient
ways of interrogation than the current archiving system. Thanks to the attention
paid by Saporiti’s owners to the preservation of documentation on the history of their
own company, the paper faces the sequence of products, collaborations with architects
and designers, the organisation of the company and its fortune. Phases linked to market
demands and more experimental trends emerge, and thanks to the presence of designers
such as Augusto Bozzi, Ado Franchini, Alberto Rosselli and others, the reflections of both
the theoretical debate on furniture design and the fluctuations in taste and production
methods over a period of almost seventy years can be seen.
