Antonio Ratti – entrepreneur and patron from Como – is part of the great personalities who, after the Second World War, were able to rebuild the Italian industry from a philanthropic and cultural viewpoint.

Born in Como on the 22nd of September 1915, he founded his entrepreneurial activity on the profound conviction that textile is a cultural product. In his vision, experience and knowledge, art and experimentation become fundamental tools not only to understand the current times but also to produce a product of quality.

In 1945 he founded Tessitura Serica Antonio Ratti for the design and retailing of fabrics for silk ties and scarves. It was the first step of a long entrepreneurial activity that culminated in the creation of the Ratti Group – currently chaired by his daughter Donatella – one of the world's leading manufacturers of fabrics designed with creativity and technological research.

A profound attention to the social and cultural context emerges through Antonio Ratti's entrepreneurial activity: in the pioneering building built by Tito Spini in 1958 for Ratti S.p.A., the Palazzina dei Servizi Sociali was used as a canteen during the day and in the evening it hosted concerts, theatre shows, courses and debates for workers.

The need to find inspiration for the creation of new textile designs led him to collect antique fabrics from all over the world. This prestigious collection became in 1985 the heart of a cultural foundation which still bears his name today. Here, in addition to the study and conservation of the textile archive and the collection, the Artists' Research Laboratory (CSAV) course is held every year since 1995. It has become an important reference point for young artists from all over the world, who have the opportunity to deepen their practices in contact with great masters of the contemporary panorama.

His vision, weaving together business and art, creativity and cultural activities, led him not only to be named Cavaliere del Lavoro in 1972, but also to be linked to the greatest cultural institutions such as the Guggenheim, the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Palazzo Grassi in Venice, Palazzo Reale and the Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea in Milan.

In particular, in 1995 Antonio Ratti decided to finance the creation of the Antonio Ratti Textile Center at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It is a center of conservation, restoration and cataloguing of MET’s collection of textiles, previously gathered in individual departments of the museum. Thus the Antonio Ratti Textile Center at the Metropolitan Museum of Art was born, an incredibly innovative structure dedicated to the study and conservation of textiles.

His daughter, Annie Ratti, succeeded him in the leadership of the Foundation after his death in 2002.

Massimo Bartolini

Double Shell

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