1976-2016:

This year Magis reaches a major milestone: forty years since it was first founded.

Forty years of dreams that take shape every day, a story told by many voices and many hands, always upheld by a boundless energy and animated by the search for that “more than” that is a fundamental characteristic of the company, as is implicit in its very name.

The story of Magis is above all one of people sharing passion, dedication and daily challenges over the past forty years: from the founder Eugenio Perazza to his family, to the many collaborators who work within the company or in the network of external production units with which it interacts, showing once again its open, innovative approach.

An operation that combines creativity, technology and organization, in the best tradition of Italian production, giving shape to an increasingly extraordinary, appealing and engaging world, every single day.

As the firm’s founder Eugenio Perazza likes to assert: “There is a precise and perfect correspondence between Magis’ essence, courage and spirit, and those of a mule, which is why this animal has for years been the emblem of our company.

Like Magis, the mule is humble and not conceited, it doesn’t show off, it is a tireless worker, never gives up, and when it falls it gets right back up again. It doesn’t look for the easy way out, indeed, it loves a challenge, and possesses an innate, intense curiosity that leads it to continuously explore new paths”.

Today, on the occasion of the company’s 40th anniversary, the mule also becomes a product in the Magis catalogue, with a name that is not chosen at random: Ettore – Hector – like Homer’s hero, central to so many exploits in Greek mythology.

Architect and journalist Patrizia Scarzella is a long-standing friend of Magis, and this was her way of marking the company’s big birthday, looking back over its history, and highlighting “its youthful spirit, its playful outlook, its capacity to surprise us, to dream, and to look beyond the present”:

“Magis is turning forty. They say that life begins at forty. Forty is the age of maturity, growth, new horizons, thoughts and objectives, but also of new responsibilities.

Magis is actually ageless, an exceptional case that is ‘forever young’, born and raised with an aptitude to stay youthful, thanks to its positive outlook, flexible vision, drive and innovative spirit.

It would seem that Magis knows the secret of the ancient legend of eternal youth!

It has not changed over time, maintaining the playful approach of its earliest days, a whimsical mindset that seems, if anything, to have grown stronger over the years.

From its first steps to the present day, it now walks with confidence and runs fast. With experience it has grown more sophisticated, more cultivated, increasingly attentive to and in tune with the signals, able to stay one step ahead of the rest, more attractive, radiant and joyful.

Desired, indulged and loved by many. It is a joy to know it, to spend time around it, to work with it.

It gives energy and vitality with its positive, forward-looking mentality.

It has a versatile mind, that of a young team raised under the guidance of Eugenio Perazza, the founder and soul of Magis, who has ably spread its spirit and philosophy across the globe.

“The exemplary story of MAGIS has always been an upward curve,” so wrote Alessandro Mendini recently. “An admirable series of products. An accurate choice of designers. Fully updated strategies. Sophisticated communication. The right industrial policy. And then the new MAGIS headquarters. The location is ZEN, a magic box to protect this rare phenomenon.”

Within the panorama of international design, Magis really is the ‘rare phenomenon’ described by Mendini.

The lateral thinking with which it approaches objects, imagines them, interprets and creates them, is unique and special. And it always manages to surprise us with its fabulous intuitions, its ability to dream, to go beyond the present, designing a future where it is nice to live.

Happy birthday, dear Magis!”