During the postwar years a new kind of self-skinning spray-on plastic known as Cocoon was developed in the United States for the mothballing of naval vessels.

Arturo Eisenkeil from Merano imported this state-of-the-art material into Italy and began searching for commercial applications for it.

In 1959 he co-founded with Dino Gavina and Cesare Cassina, a new company named Flos to produce light fixtures utilizing the material.

This led to the Castiglioni brothers designing their series of Cocoon lights, issued by Flos and including the Viscontea (1960), the Taraxacum (1960) and the Gatto (1962).
CF/PF