Lecture by Piero Gandini and Piero Lissoni at UMPRUM

The Atelier of Product Design at UMPRUM, in collaboration with Ilona Mančíková, is hosting a lecture by Piero Gandini and Piero Lissoni at UMPRUM. These distinguished guests will present their practice, the development of their careers, and the milestones that have been key to their work.

!Entry for registered guests only!
You can register here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdk9x-LXfh_oL4UyRt_9wbPNCR_GPgmUfSzrt73HxkixpgajA/viewform

Piero Gandini
Executive Chairman, Flos B&B Italia Group
Piero Gandini is a significant design visionary, entrepreneur, and creative director who has fundamentally shaped the identity of the Flos brand and the landscape of contemporary lighting design. He built upon the work of his father, Sergio Gandini, who joined Flos in 1963-1964 and transformed it into one of the most respected design companies in the world over several decades.
Piero boldly continued his family's vision at a very young age: in 1988, at just 25 years old, he became the creative director and later also a co-owner of the company. Under his leadership, Flos not only continued to develop iconic designs by domestic masters such as Tobia Scarpa and the Castiglioni brothers but also expanded into new collaborations with the rebel Philippe Starck and opened its doors to a new generation of authors.
Gandini is valued as an extraordinary "talent scout," bringing together creators such as Konstantin Grcic (Mayday, 1998), Formafantasma (Wirering, 2017), or Michael Anastassiades – all of whom are now among the most influential figures in contemporary design.
Over three decades, he maintained Flos not only in peak form but also pushed it further – towards cultural design, where light is not a luxury, but a thought, a language, and a way of storytelling.
Even after his departure in 2019, his influence on Flos remained defining. In January 2025, Piero Gandini returned as the Executive Chairman of the Flos B&B Italia Group to strengthen the vision, continuity, and cultural identity of the entire holding, which today includes brands such as Flos, B&B Italia, Louis Poulsen, Maxalto, Arclinea, Azucena, Audo Copenhagen, and Lumens.
He advises young designers: “Stay true to your vision.”     Piero Lissoni
Architect, Designer, Art Director

Piero Lissoni is an internationally recognized Italian architect and designer known for his refined language of simplicity, precise proportions, and timeless elegance. He studied architecture at the Politecnico di Milano and founded the studio Lissoni & Partners in 1986, which today operates in Milan and New York.
His work encompasses architecture, interiors, product design, and yachting, with his realizations found worldwide – from the USA to Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, including new projects in Brazil, for example. Lissoni designs hotels, residences, cultural spaces, showrooms, and extensive commercial objects, always emphasizing the harmony of space, light, and material.
At the same time, he has been the long-term creative director and a prominent shaping voice for the brands Porro and Living Divani, which he helped build from the ground up alongside their owners. He played a key role in the rebirth and international rise of the brand Boffi, defining its aesthetic language and global identity.
Lissoni collaborates with many world-renowned brands across sectors – for more than twenty years, he has been associated with companies like Flos, Kartell, Cassina, and others. His work straddles architecture and design but is always based on a unified principle: purity of form, attention to detail, and the culture of space.

The guests are arriving in Prague as speakers for the Pulse conference  - https://pulse.archi/