Design, whether of the home or of the collective environments is not and cannot be only a synonym of industry.
Design exists where there is a sense of things, of objects.
And the sense always lies in the history of a path made up of research, experiment, innovation. Past and future, belonging and memory, desire and projection. We seduce by what we evoke, more than by what we are in ourselves. For this reason De Padova, with the richness of its history, has always been a model of style, to be evoked and imitated. It was and is this in the idea of the home. It is so today in suggesting collective environments: accommodation (hotels, waiting rooms, airports) commercial spaces (restaurants, cafés, cinemas, stores, showrooms, shopping centers), business places (offices, banks, convention centers), cultural venues (museums, theaters, universities, exhibitions, events).
No one like De Padova, over the last 50 years has worked on the added value of designer objects and furniture: enhancing the talent and the character of the designer, placing furnishings and objects in elegant and experimental, creative and comfortable installations.

Didi Gnocchi

"I think the workplace has to be pleasant not only for those who live there but also for the people you receive, the people you work with and talk to."

"Today more than ever the idea of having an office that is home-like, forming a contrast with the frenetic rhythms of our days and work, is very important. Being in a workplace, but also a hotel, a waiting room where you feel relaxed, where you can have a cup of coffee while feeling you’re in your own home: to me all this is extremely important, and I think it is for all of us. And then, today, a lot of people work from home and so their furniture has be suited to the home as well as the office. You need a worktable, but also – why not? – a sofa that allows you to talk in a relaxed way. You feel at your comfort you, and so do those who call on you."

"You might even have some impersonal furniture, cold, hyper-technological... like certain pieces of Miller office furniture from the 1950s, but the way you compose these items is also important. Charles Eames would just introduce a photograph, an object, a fabric by Alexander Girard, and the environment would suddenly become charged with poetry.
You cannot create a sense of pleasure with a sofa or a table, however attractive they may be, but with the setting you create, the decor, an atmosphere that conveys a sense of wellbeing."

"The office is a powerful business card. It is very difficult to help a person to furnish a home because emotional, cultural and individual factors all come into play. But furnishing an office can be much simpler, though no less important. Because the office becomes your image, it is the first contact that you have with the world of work that comes to meet you. Having a pleasant, comfortable office, one that may even convey a sense of excitement by its style, by an allusion or by a detail, is what makes all the difference."

Maddalena De Padova