Our story

Like many a good organisations, we owe our existence to one man’s ambition. Our company, or rather the ancestor of the present company, was set up in the 1970s by the late Sandro Corvi. He was a man with a passion for furniture and interior design, and with a real eye for beauty. He brought these qualities to his furniture shop in Rome. Though that business was quite small, it quickly became widely known. Customers came from all over the world to buy elegant and prestigious pieces of Italian design, and while they were dealing with Sandro they would often ask for his advice about how to place their purchase in their bedroom or living room, or more generally, how to craft an authentic and graceful Italian interior in their home. Sandro spotted a business opportunity in these incidental queries. Under his direction, the furniture shop evolved into creative workshop where architects and designers could work together to fulfil a client’s vision. It was at this time that Sandro began to venture into the Arabian market. This was completely unexplored territory, in a part of the world with very little of the necessary infrastructure for a design-and-build company. For those first projects in the Middle East, Sandro had to import all of the materials, right down to the nails and the glue. 

Over the years our network has grown deeper and wider. We have completed projects all over the world, in countries including Bahrain, China, France, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, Tanzania, the United Kingdom, the United States and Venezuela. We have offices in some of the countries in which we operate, which helps make the process smoother for us and for clients who need a design consultant in those places. In Qatar, we are represented by our associate company, Italian Style Qatar, which operates its own plaster, joinery, decoration and upholstery workshops. We also have a branch company in Bahrain. 

Our list of collaborators includes some of the world’s finest and best-known architects, engineers and designers. We can call on the expertise and aesthetic insight of true arbiters of modern, classical, contemporary and eclectic Italian style such as Alberto Pinto, Maurizio Chiari, Giampiero Peia, Cesare Rovatti, Camillo Costantini, Giorgio Pes, Paolo Portoghesi, Vittorio Gigliotti, Massimo Dalla Torre.

Back in 1988, the words ‘two thousand’ (duemila in Italian) evoked the future. That phrase, that round number, contained a sense of excitement about the coming millennium and the challenges it might bring. Sure enough, the last decade of the twentieth century and the first years of this century have been a period of growth and fruitfulness for us, of success built upon success. Some thirty years later, our name – Design 2000 – is for us still redolent of the creative flair and the special optimism of our founder Sandro Corvi. These things are still a core element of our company’s culture.