Formafantasma takes creative helm of 800-year-old Florence pharmacy

Formafantasma has been appointed creative director of Florence's Officina Profumo-Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella, one of the oldest continuously operating pharmacies in the world.

Studio founders Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin will focus primarily on the company's products. Their brief covers unravelling the hidden histories of the existing range and informing new launches, alongside input on packaging, communication, retail spaces and events.

The designers were explicit about their intent. "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."

Eight centuries of accumulated knowledge

Dominican friars founded the Officina in 1221. They 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, the house became a public pharmacy, official supplier to the Medici court and later a purveyor of cosmetics and fine fragrances. Today it functions largely as a perfumery.

For Formafantasma, the appeal lies in that layered inheritance. "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," the studio 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."

A forensic approach to materials

Material legacies are familiar territory for the Milan-based duo, whose research-heavy practice has charted the global impact of the forestry industry in the Cambio exhibition and unpacked wool production and humans' symbiotic relationship with sheep in Oltre Terra. For the Officina, the aim is to apply the same forensic approach to materials and sustainability to the company's own uninterrupted production heritage in order to shape its future.

The company framed the appointment in curatorial terms. "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," it said in a statement.

The appointment is the second institutional role Formafantasma has taken on in recent months. In July, the duo was named the first-ever ecology advisor to London's Serpentine Galleries, where the designers previously staged their 2020 Cambio exhibition.

The pairing suggests a growing model for heritage brands: rather than commissioning a rebrand, institutions are bringing in research-led designers to interrogate their archives as living material. For Santa Maria Novella, the test will be whether eight centuries of formulation translate into new products.