Luca Nichetto, born in Venice in 1976, has never truly left the island he comes from, even though he has lived for years in Stockholm, where his studio Nichetto & Partners is based. He trained at the Istituto d’Arte and the IUAV, but his real school was Murano, where in 1999 he began designing his first glass objects for Salviati. It was there that he learned the syntax of design: a combination of material instinct, technical discipline, and a certain artisanal roughness. With Profilo, the new suspension presented at the third edition of Murano Illumina il Mondo, Luca Nichetto returns to that original matrix with the intention of expanding the language of Murano tradition without turning it into a relic. Here, memory and innovation do not chase each other, but coexist, without convenient nostalgia, while looking toward tomorrow.
"Working with glass comes naturally to me; it’s a return to my family roots and my first professional experiences," the designer says. Indeed, Profilo is not just a new product, but a gesture, a posture. Glass is not treated as a precious material to be preserved in a showcase, but as a matter in constant updating. This is a rare stance, especially in a discipline that often—out of caution or fatigue—confuses the protection of tradition with the mere replication of what has already been done.
The genesis of Profilo starts from a very simple and very Murano idea: centrifugal glass. But here the technique is not a technical gimmick, nor does it serve to produce a decorative effect. The glass discs, all different in diameter, are conceived as “marks” left by a physical force, almost like traces of a movement that has shaped the material—and indeed, the object seems to move. The surface remains slightly irregular, while the color is organized in a spiral along the path of centrifugal force. It is a piece that makes its construction visible, and in this material honesty, it finds its most contemporary dimension. The central light point acts as a nucleus that holds the entire system together: a heart that diffuses light and filters it through the discs, softening it and giving it a vibration that does not rely on technological artifices. Technology is present, but it serves transparency, layering, and the air between the elements so that Profilo cannot be considered a mere formal exercise.
Working with glass comes naturally to me; it’s a return to my family roots and my first professional experiences.
Luca Nichetto
Profilo is the first fruit of the new collaboration between Nichetto and Barovier&Toso, announced alongside his appointment as the first external artistic director in the history of this historic glassworks—the oldest still active in the world, founded in 1295. This fact is significant in itself: bringing in an external figure into such a rooted context is not just a gesture of openness, it is a cultural stance. It signifies recognizing that the future of tradition does not necessarily pass through pure conservation, but through dialogue and osmosis.
"As a designer and artistic director, I am constantly searching for new territories to explore, where I can use a recognizable expressive force and narrate a vision, while remaining deeply connected to the territory in which I live: a dialogue between past and future, where centuries-old techniques meet innovative design, just like in Profilo."
This is one of the clearest sentences to understand what “returning to one’s roots” really means for Luca Nichetto and his life between Scandinavia and the lagoon. Not a sentimental return, but a new starting point. For Nichetto, it does not mean a catalog of formulas to be repeated, but—beyond being his home—an active archive, a system that only makes sense if subjected to continuous rewriting. And this third edition of Murano Illumina il Mondo—from November 21, 2025, to March 1, 2026, under the Procuratie Vecchie in Piazza San Marco—is the ideal backdrop. It is an event that draws attention back to Murano at a time when the culture of glass more than ever needs to be discussed as a contemporary issue, not as a chapter of history. The event is organized and promoted by the Municipality of Venice and The Venice Glass Week, with the support of the Venice Rovigo Chamber of Commerce.
In this context, Profilo works almost like a small manifesto—elegant without mannerisms, connected to tradition without submitting to it, able to show that innovation, when authentic, never completely breaks with what preceded it. Nichetto does not “celebrate” Murano, he loves it and constantly puts it to work again. And he does so by reminding us that this same tradition is never a place to return to, but a place to start from.
All images: Courtesy Nichetto