Hangar Design Group

FOUNDATION
Hangar Design Group was founded in 1980.
The founders:
Alberto Bovo was born in Padua in 1954.
Sandro Manente was born in Venice in 1957.

CAREER
Two architects, with very different personalities, inclinations and skills: Bovo with his strong organizational skills coordinates not only the figures present in the headquarters of Hangard but also those in Italy and abroad, delineating the strategic lines necessary to be able to expand the group. His attitude is perfectly complemented by the profile of Manente who prefers to express himself in the fields of urban planning, design and interior design.
In 1990, after a radical restoration, two old hangars for airships located on the road from Venice to Treviso were put back into operation. This is where the headquarters of the company is located, and this is where ideas for the future are planned.
In 2000 the Milan office was opened and the company took on a national dimension. The Milan office is the hub of the company’s connection with a network of international collaborators. We continue to look ahead to new goals and unknown territories. Hangar Design Group is today multicultural and multidisciplinary. The new challenge is to put our creativity and ideas at the service of global markets.
The following year, 2001, the inevitable contact with the American culture occurred when they took on the United States by inaugurating a new headquarters in the Flatiron Building. The American experience inspired the whole group and opened the doors to a crucial market for the years to follow.
Three years later, 2004, the Far Eastern market kept expanding. Hangar Design Group opened a base in Shanghai, gateway to the Asian continent. The company is now a true global network.
In 2011, the ADI Compasso d’Oro Award came about for the “Sunset” mobile home project. The most important award for design, together with numerous other prizes, marked a professional career of thirty years.
In 2015 Hangar Design created Futura, the first collection of lamps for Vistosi, which in the same year won the Archiproducts Design Awards as the best product in the lighting category. In 2017 they conceived two other collections for Vistosi: Peggy and Stone. The first was exhibited at the Peggy Museum in Venice, the second won the coveted Good Design Award 2017.
A new base in the French Concession and a long-term partnership with the Taiwanese brand ACERA contributed in 2019 to consolidating the agency’s presence on the Asian market.
Throughout the years, the company has been involved in many publications and lectures, including some related to universities.
Today Hangar Design Group is an international network with more than 80 active customers in 15 countries and a staff of almost 50 people including brand strategists, designers, architects, digital experts and content managers.
To crown 40 years of ideas, projects, intuitions, meetings, places, people and much more, the two architects have taken on the role of actors and as novices have acted in a beautiful short film that describes the key stages of this long journey which always ends up going back to where it began.