In those years the industrial production in Battaglia stopped, beginning to search new activities that could have more relevance to the artistic bronze productions.
The Mangiarotti catalogue inserts itself greatly in this history for both his character and the quality of the collection, which also had in fact a great commercial success. For a period Battaglia hasn’t worked for the design and architectural fields, as it concentrated its production on a tight collaboration with the great artists of the time (Azuma, Bodini, Boetti, Fontana, Manzù, Marini, Messina, Minguzzi, Pomodoro, Penone,…). At the beginning of the 21st Century Battaglia was involved in an important partnership with Viabizzuno, with the projects of Mario Nanni and Marcello Chiarenza. Twelve light sculptures, one for each astrological sign, for more than 150 pieces.
Following this success many designers begun acknowledging the infinite potential of surfaces and finishing patinas of the Foundry: for instance Osanna Visconti di Modrone begun experimenting with big pieces of furniture. Alvaro Catalan de Ocon begun casting directly cardboard to crete a series of stools. Francesco Faccin, in collaboration with Nilufar Gallery – Milan, with his project Serial Planks in which wooden boards have been replaced with bronze boards, used as units to compose chairs, tables, consoles, stools and fruit-holders. Formafantasma in collaboration with Giustini/Stagetti - Galleria ‘O – Rome, created a vast collection of bronze lighting pieces. Lex Pott built a project of chair+table extracted from a real tree, translating accurately the surface, in collaboration with his Gallery in New York City. Roberto Sironicreated the collection Fuoco: real burnt tree-logs transformed in bronze pieces, in collaboration with Gallery Bensimon - Paris. Dimorestudio designed a whole collection of tables and lamps to make out of bronze.
Margherita Del Favero made a series of vases using the surface of old tree logs, casted in bronze and then patinated with a double-coloured effect. Fabio Micuccitranslated vases that he produced in glass in Murano-Venice, into bronze, using a wide range of patina choices for his gallery in L.A. Roberto Baciocchi created vases and lamps with bark pieces casted directly into bronze, for his “Ecorce Collection” in collaboration with Nero Gallery in Arezzo.
