Travel News

Puglia: a muse for decades

Leading furniture designer Pasquale Natuzzi shares his love affair with Puglia, the source of more than five decades of inspiration and the cradle of benchmark Italian design.

Pasquale Natuzzi, aged just 19, opened his first workshop in 1959 in southern Italy, making armchairs and sofas for the local market. Free to express the passion and creativity he'd always felt, this was the first chapter of a remarkable story that would endure for generations to come.
Drawing inspiration from his homeland - the warmth of the fireplace in the old farmhouses, the magnificent castles, the elegance of the Romanesque cathedrals, the changing light in the white towns ­- he made harmony his starting point and the ultimate goal of his work.  It's the ethos of Natuzzi Italia, creating spaces to make you feel at ease and in harmony, too.
So when did Natuzzi's love affair with Puglia begin?
In the early '60s, Natuzzi moved to Matera, where he began to gain commercial experience, giving him in-depth knowledge of distribution, while remaining acutely focused on design. By the decade's end, the production of sofas and armchairs had moved to an industrial scale. The search for beauty within every detail had begun.
In the early '70s, after a fire razed the Matera factory, Natuzzi relocated production to Santeramo in Colle, Bari, the group's headquarters today, and home to key research and development.
In the early '80s, during a trip to the US, Natuzzi's intuition prompted a radical change of direction: to democratise the leather sofa, once a product for an élite, niche audience. Natuzzi's distinct style was born and the US market was conquered. Coloured leather was the rage. 
In the '90s, Natuzzi Open Art seeks to make art accessible to everyone via site-specific collaborations with contemporary artists in Natuzzi's flagship stores around the world, fostering artists and democratising art alike.
In 2001, Pasquale Natuzzi was awarded an honorary degree in Education Science by the University of Bari. In 2008, Natuzzi was inducted into the American Furniture Hall of Fame - the first international recipient of the honour.
With harmony at the heart of each concept, Natuzzi continues to work passionately alongside Pasquale Junior Natuzzi and his team, collaborating with prolific designers such as Claudio Bellini, Manzoni and Tapinassi, Victor Vasilev and Bernhardt & Vella.
"The feelings, the sense of family, the handshakes of a time gone by - this is Puglia, the land of origin of our inspirations," says Natuzzi.
 
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