Taking a closer look at the brands involved in the world of design and manufacture of furniture, there are clearly many brands available on the market, but only a few of them can rely on a past, a history and an entrepreneurship of this kind.
Founded more than 60 years ago, today the company boasts a very modern establishment situated in Peveragno (Cuneo). Designed by well-known architect Gianni Arnaudo, it combines traditions and future with innovation and history.
This story begins with the insight and wisdom of the founder, Salvatore Maligno, who way back in 1947 in his traditional shop, understood how to blend the art of Sicilian Baroque cabinetmaking with Piedmont tradition bringing to life a new way of creating and developing important projects, which combined the knowledge of wood with the first technological advances. The sensitivity and the great passion put into all projects, showed the skills and deep knowledge of all the expressive means of the long lasting tradition of Italian cabinetmaking. During those years the DNA of the company was formed, the structural formula that characterized the 1960's. Through the enthusiastic dedication of his son Giorgio Maligno, the framework of an innovative way of designing the interior of a room or crafting a cabinet was born. All of this was possible because craftsmanship goes hand in hand with continuous in-depth research.
The traditional shop, which is now a small company, turns into a big experimentation workshop. It becomes clear that development can only be achieved through innovation and means that one should never settle for what is already known, but rather ceaselessly create new roads to find unexpected solutions.
Giorgio Maligno's talent is the result of his love of harmony and proportion, a result of his past musical experience and of the extraordinary skills of a life spent creating custom-made furniture. The first numerical control machines turned wood working into a production cycle which is now approaching the extent of an industrial plant.
A few years later the baton is taken over by Giorgio's eldest son Andrea, who, mustering up a good deal of intelligence, perseverance and passion and with the help of his younger brother Leonardo, launches the industrial plant as it is known today, an incredible breeding ground for ideas, contributions and incentives coming from the international cultural world. The industrial plant opens its doors to architects and designers, some of which are world renowned, and their contribution is crucial to shape the future.
Andrea is the first to realise that competitors are an opportunity rather than an obstacle and that opening the doors to fresh ideas is a way of thinking on a big scale. Today the Maligno brand is well known for its cooperation with many industrial giants and important clients like Lavazza, Miroglio group, Italgelatine, Dimar, Pastor group and ENGECO Pastor in Montecarlo, (where the Maligno group has also decorated the "Grace Kelly" theatre), EDF France, the local Peugeot dealer (Cuneo) and Mediaset (Milan). Among the most recent projects the following deserve a special mention: refurbishment of the Opera Theatre in Baku (Azerbaijan), SPA Laguna Palace in Grado (Gorizia), Napoleon Hotel in Cherasco (Cuneo), Hotel Riviera dei Fiori (Imperia), Palais Stéphanie (Cannes) and the Californian atelier of Helmut Newton, the photographer who has changed the world of fashion and visual arts.