Dove c'è gente c'è Velca

The exhibition will focus on the years from 1954 to 1968, the most important period in Velca's entrepreneurial history and the one managed by Vedani and Casaroli before the company was sold to the Knoll group.
The narrative aims to relate the human and professional events, the stories of the protagonists of this adventure (the founders, but also the testimonies of the designers who signed the most important Velca products) with the company's flagship products.

In addition to this, there is a section dedicated to highlighting the founders' ability to propose a vision that was innovative at the time, both in the production of graphic material to support marketing, and in the decision to be heavily involved in promotion through substantial advertising investments and careful, measured planning.
At the time, this was a vision that could only be found in much larger companies.
The company's history can be told starting from an initial historical phase, characterised by the production of metal furniture under its own brand and parts for third parties. The first substantial growth in turnover was linked to the production and marketing of furniture designed to provide solid support for the televisions that entered Italian homes in the late 1950s and 1960s.
As chance would have it, the official programming of broadcasts aimed at the general public began in 1954, the year Velca was founded.

A leap forward is then connected to the important gamble that brings Velca to furnish the Autogrill that were beginning to dot the roads of the Peninsula, and then continue with the production of the first series of chairs and stools with metal structure.

The second phase gained strength with the move from the small warehouse in Via Balbo to the new premises in Via Jucker and then, at the end of the Sixties, with the start of a policy of recruiting young designers called upon to renew the product catalogue by creating new ones. The consolidation of production and the emphasis on marketing brought Velca up to 140 employees. The next step was to sell the company to Knoll in 1986. The activity will continue until the 1990s, but the exhibition intends to stop the reconstruction at the moment of the sale by the founders.