“Farewell Architetto”. Giuseppe Meana has died

The Architetto, that is what they called him in the world of packaging, suddenly left us Saturday December 7th. President of Pusterla 1880, he was 64 years of age.
Luciana Guidotti and Stefano Lavorini
 

With courteous elegance, taste and verve Giuseppe Meana guided the fortunes of the Venegono Inferiore based paper converter for over 40 years.

Having joined the company in 1972, before taking his degree in architecture, he soon had to learn “how to make boxes” from those in the concern who had more experience than he did.

Bolstered by family support he soon faced up to the market, fielding a good dose of courage, indeed managing to emerge thanks to a different style of production of folding cases, centering on detail, color and creativity but aboveall technical knowhow that had the true flavour of “craftsmanship”.
Under his guidance the company grew to becoming Pusterla 1880, an international group with solid Italian roots; a wise and controlled growth undoubtedly much the merit of Giuseppe Meana.

An intelligent curiosity in fact always induced him to look beyond his concern, for which he has always worked steadfastly, imagining a personal and collective future: the various extensions to the company’s Venegono facilities, the first buy-ups in France, the setting up of production in Romania and, last in order of time, the concern’s crossing the English Channel; and again, institutional commitments (president of Gifasp and the Istituto Italiano Imballaggio), but aboveall his propensity to cultivate the talents of those around him.

Hence he naturally encouraged the young members of the family, his nephew Roberto Marini at first and then his son Luca, to work for Pusterla, bearing witness to Meana’s will to carry on with a project with a broad scope, bound by a well set objective in both head and heart: never compromise on quality and professional repute… even if you only make cases and covered boxes.

Affectionately

[...] This factory has risen, in the idea of the Architect,

in respect of the beauty of its surrounds

so that beauty may lighten man’s daily toil.


 

[...] The factory was conceived on a human scale,

so that man may find in his tidy workplace
a tool of
redemption and not a contraption of sufference […]

The sudden disappearance of Giuseppe dismays and pains us deeply.
We want to commemorate him in our on way, with the words of another great Italian industrialist, Adriano Olivetti, whose entrepreneurial and social program, that led to what he considered one of the highest expressions of Italian architecture, was much appreciated by Meana - as we discovered recently.

But not only that. In those words we find expressed in a masterful manner concepts dear to Giuseppe, for which, during his experience and entrepreneur, he expended himself a lot: the value of work and the value of beauty, the respect for others, the esteem that is to be won on the field day by day, up to making it a style of life.

We have had the privilege of working for - but aboveall - with Giuseppe Meana. We are proud to have imagined and thought together with him.
In these very last months, taking up his invitation, we have tried to write the story-history of Pusterla from its origins in 1880 up to more recent times. A tale, in its intentions, to be given as a gift to all the employees of the Group, to have them participate in the journey made so fare and that which still has to be made together.

The book - “Pusterla 1880, Making Ones Mark” - in actual fact comprises the recollections and feelings of the Architetto, his trepidations and his consideration towards others, be they family or co-workers…But it also contains his irony and his courage, his love of sharing high values, that have given substance and character to his figure as a man.

During the times we worked together, we learned to appreciate his quiet steadfastness and lively curiosity, his kindness of other eras, that Lombard streak of being bit austere but ever ready to smile. Measured and discreet, he was often capable of surprising us (often to our intense enjoyment) with sharp and acute judgements on life and people, aiming at a benign sense of complicity that was easy for him to create.

Great our sadness, and great and deep the commotion at this moment in time, for the loss of this good man, of his view of life, his intelligence and his culture: we will miss him a lot.

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Last farewell to Giuseppe Meana