Profile and History

UNIQUE ARTISANAL FURNISHINGS

Since 1950



Meccani Design is a Company that designs and produces furniture items of superior craftsmanship with three generations of experience.
All products are designed and manufactured in Italy, Tuscany, in its laboratory located in Cascina (Pisa).
They have a strong tie with the territory as for the highly innovative and technological production process and the design while maintaining the Tuscan furniture tradition. It also combines the taste and contemporary style typical of Made in Italy.
The modern furniture has a classic, durable, timeless taste where a natural material, wood, meets fantasy and experienced hands to beautify the environment in which we live.
Classicism and innovation, with the best materials and techniques to ensure a high-quality which goes beyond fashion.
A great respect for nature and the sheer quest for integration, allows us to design and build in a sustainable way, with the least environmental impact, reducing energy waste, using natural, renewable and biocompatible materials at their best. A green world, with the choice of non-toxic materials coming from certified forests.

Furniture made of wood, because wood is beautiful, warm, fragrant, renewable, robust, solid and it is also an alive resource.


"Our story is the tradition of a family that has always designed and worked wood with passion and originality"

Design beyond fashions, creativity, design...

The beauty of Crafts, the beginnings ... 50s


"Crafts, falling within the sphere of making, creating, producing, is the basis of all our manual and material activities; very often the product of this activity borders on the field of culture, spiritual enjoyment, artistic perception; the artifacts that derive from it combine practical and use purposes, aesthetic purposes, whose formal and ornamental elements also perform ritual and symbolic functions, representation, distinction. Manuality is supported by idea and technology; through the succession of experiences of generations of artisans, shapes, colors, meanings, values are caught that seem to know no boundaries of space, time, fashions, customs and habits.
The origins of the craft activity are confused with those of man, they date back to the first experiences made with the materials offered by nature; the first simple artifacts immediately recall the natural environment and therefore the raw materials that it offers; they enhance the value of the material whose choice is inseparable from the creative process; they reveal the habits of the social group that produced them and show a clear and exclusive destination for the use for which they were made.
Over time, traditions and uses, they have inspired particular shapes, lines, structures; the primary need for functionality is followed by the aesthetic impulse, the desire to make it more beautiful, more pleasant to use. A process that expresses, in addition to practical intelligence, also creativity and imagination; the object born for use, also becomes a decorative object and bearer of meanings .... the idea through artisanal ability is transformed into a durable good.
Alongside the continuous technological transformations with the economic and social implications, the standardization of expressive languages and ways of life, the seriality and repetitiveness of productions, the artisanal product, unique, allows you to get out of the anonymity of series production, not as a copy but possibly as a similar or multiple work, it expresses a synthesis of design and creativity of those who produce it but also of the client who actively participates in the birth of the artifact that in this way expresses its creativity and its way of being.”

Manufacturing activities related to the production of furniture and furnishings were born in Cascina around the middle of the 19th century in a territory with an agricultural vocation, driven by the creation of the railway that connected Florence with Pisa and that greatly favored its development.
Many factories developed right next to the train station and later the entire territory was tinked to the production of furniture that became a driving force of the local economy. An art school had already been built, the Society of workers, the whole country revolved around woodworking; in addition to carpentry, activities related to them developed, from upholsterers to glassworks, to decorators, painters, hardware stores, companies that produced machinery for woodworking, permanent furniture exhibitions where local artisans exhibited their products.

In the 1950s there were numerous furniture companies in Cascina, some of which managed to have a national and foreign market.

In this context, in the 50s, two brothers, Marino and Giuseppe Meccani created their own carpentry, Mobilificio Meccani Marino, which since the 60s, knowing a strong development, was equipped with its own design office thanks to the artistic flair of his son Ferdinando Meccani. In the 70s, the company designed and produced all kinds of furnishings, creating products of high craftsmanship and design.
Some furniture from Meccani Arredamenti designed over forty years ago, is still current. Since the 80s, the company, in addition to designing in its own technical office, will create a series of collaborations with professionals such as Paolo Portoghesi, Ettore Sottsass, Ugo La Pietra, Adolfo Natalini, Michael Graves, Masao Noguchi etc. further expanding its offer where in addition to the design and construction of custom-made furnishings, collections will be proposed for qualified stores in Italy and abroad.
In the 2000s, with the third generation, Georgica and Pietro Meccani created Future Antique Gallery specializing in contemporary and 20th century design.

In our gallery, "Future Antique Gallery" , located in the historic center of Cascina and directed by Georgica Marin Meccani, there are works of design and art of the twentieth century and contemporary, rare and unique pieces. In the carpentry , with the guide of Pietro Meccani, contemporary furnishing handcraft products are made; our design Studio , Meccani Studio, always offers new contemporary design solutions.

Complete our activity, the Meccani Art Magazine and our archive Meccani Archive, established in the 90s, which collects numerous documents, projects, etc.


Some historical models of the Meccani Company

In the 60s, the Company designed and produced already designer furniture