Riccardo Olivieri set up Foscarini Spa in Murano in 1981. Two years later, they debuted their catalog, with lamps from Carlo Urbinati and Allesandro Vecchiato, who would become the company’s managers by 1988. Eventually these new owners would move the company off the island and into Venice, as well as transition Foscarini from a glassworks shop to a major design competitor. They had already begun working with external designers in 1985, but their first success came in 1990 with Rodolfo Dordoni’s “Lumiere.” Most all lighting projects were made of glass until 1993, at which point the Havana lamp primarily used polyethylene, making it lighter, more cost-effective, and able to be used indoors and outdoors. It now resides in the MoMA in New York. Other successful lamps would come to define the company, such as the “Mite & Tite” series by Marc Sadler in 2000 (which earned a Compasso d’oro), Patricia Urquiola’s 2005 “Caboche,” and Marc Sadler’s signature lamp "Twiggy."
