Garage Bentivoglio presents "Tobia" by Ferruccio Laviani

From April 1 to 25, 2026, the storefront on Via del Borgo di San Pietro in Bologna, which hosts the Garage BENTIVOGLIO project by Palazzo Bentivoglio, presents Tobia, the luminous sculpture designed by Ferruccio Laviani in 2019 for Foscarini.

Ferruccio Laviani, Tobia, 2019, garage BENTIVOGLIO, Palazzo Bentivoglio, ph. Carlo Favero

Like all lamps designed by Ferruccio Laviani—conceived not as a single product but as part of a family that includes floor, wall, and ceiling versions—Tobia was also developed both as a floor lamp and as a wall-mounted light.

Made from a bent metal tube that, just over one meter above the ground, forms a double curve, this mid-air grip—the central element of the project—not only provides a firm handle for moving the lamp, but also (perhaps) references the Callimaco by Ettore Sottsass, which the Cremona-born architect keeps in his studio.

As Davide Trabucco, curator of the Garage BENTIVOGLIO project, writes, Laviani is an author who resists easy classification: like a DJ, he moves across genres, mixes masters, and reinvents styles, continually creating new classics. In the choice of material for Tobia, one can trace the early impulses of industrial design, while its continuous line recalls the handrails of the M1 line designed by Franco Albini and Franca Helg.

By combining technology and aesthetics, Laviani—starting from the handle—enhances the sculptural value of the bent tube, a simple gesture that grants Tobia the formal autonomy every well-designed object aspires to.

Garage BENTIVOGLIO is a project conceived to create “almost” public art, through a series of exhibitions hosted in the small garage space with a storefront at Palazzo Bentivoglio, on Via del Borgo di San Pietro in Bologna. The core idea is to present, each time, a single piece, playing on the allure of the display window: the work is staged as if it were a seductive item on display, meant to be looked at.