Listone Giordano's Cultural Patronage: New Milan Showroom and Natural Genius Book

Italian wood flooring company Listone Giordano has expanded its cultural engagement with the launch of 'Natural Genius', a book celebrating wood design, curated by Stefano Casciani and Andrea Margaritelli with Bcpt Associati. The volume profiles designers Michele De Lucchi, Patricia Urquiola, and Marc Sadler. De Lucchi also designed the brand's new Milan showroom, Arena, near Piazza San Babila, inaugurated during the last design week. The space, located at via San Damiano 3, was formerly the restaurant La Penna d'Oca, a historic meeting place for Milan's creative and intellectual elite. It is said that Filippo Tommaso Marinetti declaimed his Manifesto of Futurist Cuisine there on November 15, 1930, and that Fortunato Depero frequented it. The Arena continues this legacy as a convivial space for dialogue and experimentation. The company's cultural mission began in March 2006 with a piano performance by Danilo Rea at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, closing Umbria Jazz. In 2000, the Fondazione Giordano was established in memory of Prof. Guglielmo Giordano, inventor of an innovative wood flooring patent in 1983. The foundation has supported exhibitions on Renaissance masters and, in 2007, rediscovered a lost masterpiece by Pinturicchio, 'Il Bambin Gesù delle mani', from the Vatican Museums. Other initiatives include 'La Foresta che suona' by sound artist Federico Ortica and 'ImmaginAria' aerial dance performance.