DE CASTELLI is an Italian metal furniture and design company, founded in 2003 by Albino Celato in Crocetta del Montello (Province of Treviso, Veneto). The foundation of the company consists of four generations of family history in metalworking: the great-grandfather acquired a piece of land on a canal at the end of the 19th century to harness water power for metalworking; the father introduced copper and brass in the 1960s and produced the first craft furniture. Albino Celato brought a desire for innovation and technological advancement to the company, worked for third parties until the 1990s, and founded the independent brand DE CASTELLI in 2003 — a fictional name deliberately evoking something at once historic and noble. First appearance at the Salone del Mobile in Milan in the founding year. Key concept: "Hard Couture" — series production with craft unrepeatability. Each object is made unique through oxidation, grinding, erosion, hammering or other finishing processes, even when it forms part of a series.
Materials: stainless steel, brass, copper, Corten steel — in a near-unlimited number of surfaces and finishes. Sustainability: metal scrap is fully collected, sorted by material and recycled as rolled stock; the process water from oxidation and washing is fully recovered and reused. Designers and projects (selection): Michele De Lucchi (Existence bookcase), Cino Zucchi (first Milan flagship store, Via Visconti di Modrone; Archimbuto for the Italian Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2014), Filippo Pisan (Cottage No. 1; Loom sofa), Emilio Nanni (Syro coffee tables), Nikita Bettoni (Convivium table), Lucidi Pevere (Placas), Alexander Purcell Rodrigues (Aare wall lamp), Zanellato/Bortotto (Tracing Venice, Homo Faber 2022), Studio AMAA (Venice Architecture Biennale 2023). Range: furniture (shelving, tables, sofas, sideboards, cabinets), wall panels and surfaces (decorative and acoustic, e.g. De Code), lighting, mirrors, vases, outdoor furniture (Cottage No. 1). Headquarters + atelier: Crocetta del Montello (TV); Milan showroom: Via Visconti di Modrone.
For architects and interior designers seeking metal furniture and surfaces for demanding interior and exterior spaces that resolve the contradiction between industrial production and craft singularity, DE CASTELLI is the most consistent Venetian address — a house that understands metal not as a peripheral phenomenon of design, but as its central means of expression.