The Italian Smart Office: The Story of Estel

The book takes the reader through Estel’s history from the future to the past, working backwards in five major phases of the company’s progress. These phases are related through various illustrations, best called ‘dioramas,’ covering double-spreads that fold out, making four full-size pages. Especially created for the book by Pierluigi Longo, these dioramas emerge like grandiose modern-day frescoes in which the facts and leading figures of the business world can be observed and studied, along with the production panorama and market environment around them. They represent a sort of visualised concept that not only illustrates and tracks a path through the book, but also lends it concept and structure.

The texts that follow each theme-diorama pivot successively on the company philosophy, the protagonists, the products, and a brief text classifying the furniture manufacturing sector itself. Hence, the tale unfolds on two fronts simultaneously, interweaving the company’s history with the ongoing developments in the sector and in methods of production.