There's a phrase in the Venetian dialect, “massa alto” — “the highest”, the very best. It's where the name of a brand built never to settle comes from: Maxalto joins the Classicdesign.it catalogue today, bringing with it half a century devoted to the absolute quality of solid wood and to forms that never go out of style.
It begins in 1975, when Piero Ambrogio Busnelli took over a small chair workshop in Brianza built around solid-wood craftsmanship, sensing there was something greater hidden in those skilled hands. He entrusted the project to Afra and Tobia Scarpa, who carved wood using rare techniques borrowed from violin-making and the finest cabinetmaking traditions, creating sculptural pieces that would become true icons of Italian design. That's the moment Maxalto stopped being an idea and became a language.
Since 1993, that language has found a new author in Antonio Citterio, who carried the legacy forward without betraying it, steering it toward what he calls the “ideal room”: a space where every piece speaks to the others, where quality is obvious at first glance but only fully reveals itself over time. The result is complete furnishing systems that pair comfort with compositional rigour — from the Otium Soft and Arbiter sofas to the Alcova and Febo beds, right through to the swivel Caratos armchair, its aluminium frame drawn with the precision of an architectural plan.
It's in the smaller pieces that Maxalto's craftsmanship reaches its peak. The Tesaurus cabinet, for instance, opens curved wooden doors onto interiors in fine figured maple, topped with Marquina or Calacatta marble — a small treasure chest that sums up everything that makes Maxalto unique, where every surface, every grain, every joint is a deliberate choice rather than an accident.
Welcoming Maxalto into our catalogue means giving anyone who furnishes with care the chance to build spaces that don't chase trends but outlast them. The new collections are online now, ready to show how wood, worked with true mastery, can still be the most contemporary material there is.
