One of the oldest surviving pharmacies in the world, Florence's Officina Profumo-Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella, has appointed Italian design duo Formafantasma as creative directors.
Their new role will see studio founders Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin focus primarily on the company's products.
The studio aims to unravel their hidden histories and inform new launches, while also sharing input across Officina Profumo-Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella's packaging, communication, retail spaces and events.
"Our intention is not to redefine Santa Maria Novella through a new image, but to build from what already exists, understanding what has allowed it to remain relevant since 1221 and how this can inform its present and future," Formafantasma said.
"This means examining how its history is communicated, how new products are developed, and how the different expressions of the company can form a coherent whole."
The Officina was founded in 1221 by Dominican friars, who grew medicinal herbs and used them to prepare remedies, balms and ointments for the infirmary of Florence's Santa Maria inter Vineas church.
Over the centuries, it became a public pharmacy, official supplier to the Medici court and later a purveyor of cosmetics and fine fragrances, making it one of the oldest continuously operating pharmacies in the world. Today, it functions largely as a perfumery.
"The Officina is not simply defined by its longevity, but by the accumulation and transmission of knowledge across generations, embedded in ingredients, formulations, techniques, objects and spaces," Formafantasma said.
"Working with such an accumulation raises questions close to our own practice, particularly how it is preserved and transformed, how materials carry their own histories, and how an institution can advance without treating its past as static."
Material legacies are a well-trodden path for the design duo, known for its research-heavy deep dives into specific materials, whether charting the global impact of the forestry industry or unpacking wool production and our surprisingly symbiotic relationship with sheep.
For the Officina, the aim is for Formafantasma to apply this same forensic approach to materials and sustainability to the company's own uninterrupted production heritage in order to inform its future.
"Their role will be that of curators, attentive to the knowledge the Officina has safeguarded for eight centuries, made of ingredients, formulas and craft, and to the ways in which it can continue to evolve," the company said.
This isn't the first time that an institution has brought Formafantasma on board as an advisor in recent months. In July, the duo was also announced as the first-ever ecology advisor to London's Serpentine Galleries, where the designers previously hosted their Cambio exhibition.
Main portrait by Gregorio Gonella.