Trade & Investment Agency

Ghidini Pietro Bosco, a company which makes handles and co-ordinates, with a long history dating back to 1929. Val Trompia, a region at the foot of the mountains whose streams provide easily available hydraulic energy, an area where many workshops rapidly developed alongside the more typical agricultural activities of the mountains.
The history of our company results from this industrious tradition of both skilled labour and agriculture. Ghidini is one of the most typical names in the valley so Pietro took his nickname, for which he has become well-known, from his small farm at Bosco where he also worked.
In 1929 Pietro Ghidini, also known as “Bosco” started manufacturing brass handles and cutlery and gradually, as the family grew the factory developed until it reached the size of the modern company.
In 1950 the sons entered the company which first of all led to the creation of new factories and also started a constant process of technological innovation.
Today a series of more recent acquisitions has made it necessary to organise a much larger manufacturing reality reunited under the Ghidini Group trademark.
Today the new business group therefore includes:
GHIDINI, the historic brand based in Brozzo Val Trompia in a new factory which covers 18,000 square metres with other factories in Casto, Tavernole and Vestone (BS)
GHIDINI ALUMINIUM, a new brand which comes from the takeover of a manufacturer specialised in making aluminium handles. These are manufactured in the factories in Ponte Caffaro (BS)
GM, which manufactures handles and coordinates for contracts and large supplies for industries in the window and door frames sector.

DESIGN
A long tradition of research and manufacture, typical of the proto-industrial manufacture of the start of the last century, has accompanied the history of Ghidini Pietro Bosco right from its foundation.
The first founder was a skilled craftsman capable of creating new shapes who carefully researched innovations in technology and construction. Since 1929 Ghidini has gradually and constantly developed this characteristic creating a permanent research laboratory within the company: the Ghidini Experimental Office, dedicated to the development of new products and the definition of the most appropriate manufacturing techniques.
Since the eighties attention to design has developed by working constantly together with qualified external designers who have enabled the company to confront new incentives for research.
Ghidini’s presence in the debate involving product design is now widely recognised as is shown by some initiatives which are a point of reference in this field:
The magazine “Manua”, produced for designers and workers in this field, which was created to investigate the relationship between design and technology in the “world” of handles, coordinates and door and window frames.
The International design competition “The handle for the III Millennium”, created to celebrate the company’s seventy year anniversary which has enabled us to make an effective analysis of the manufacturing trends at the start of the new millennium. This competition led to the creation of “Infinita”, a handle which incorporates the plate and lever in just one object.
The “Leonardo” project is the most significant innovation in the handles sector: with its new shape it answers to the theme “design for all”.
Leonardo won the “Vele d’Oro” prize at Expocon 2004 and has been selected for the 19th Biennial Exhibition in Lubiana, the Costruire Prize, and for exhibition at the Triennial exhibition in Milan, the Museum of Science and Technology, Design Paris 2005, Piedmont Turin Design and furthermore the EIDD conferences.