Mapei

Innovation and research

The company was founded and originally called Materiali Ausiliari per l'Edilizia e l'Industria (Auxiliary Materials for Building and Industry), before being renamed Auxiliary Materials for Building and Industry, by Rodolfo Squinzi, employing just seven members of staff. In the early days, it manufactured coloured paints and materials for buildings coverings.

It later focused on what was then a niche market, adhesives for floors and other surfaces, most notably for Linoleum surfaces, manufacturing an adhesive called ADESILEX L1. Next came adhesives for ceramics, stone materials, carpets, PVC and wood, manufacturing a specific adhesive for each product developed thanks to heavy investment, in terms of both financial and human resources, in research, which has always been part of the company's DNA. The market expanded in the 1960s, thanks to the worldwide popularity of Italian ceramics. ADESILEX P22 adhesive was launched in a ready-to-use pack that was revolutionary for the industry at that time, which traditionally prepared conventional cement-based mortars on-site. Manufacturing was then extended to include other special mortars, waterproofers and additives for concrete.

Internationalisation

In 1978, Giorgio Squinzi, a graduate in industrial chemistry, began internationalising the company, both commercially and in terms of production, by opening a small factory in Canada after supplying adhesives for installing the rubber surfaces used for the athletics tracks at the 1976 Olympics. Over the following decades the company expanded into Austria, United States, France and then the rest of the world, opening new branches and taking over other important brands, starting with Vinavil in Italy in 1994 and most recently culminating in its latest acquisition of Fili & Forme. This growth strategy is connected with the need to manufacture adhesives and chemical products for the building industry within a 400–500 km radius of building operations to keep transport costs sustainable.

Giorgio Squinzi, the Mapei Group's Managing Director, worked alongside his wife, Adriana Spazzoli, who was Director of Marketing & Communication. Their children, Marco and Veronica, now work for the company as, respectively, the Director of Research & Development and Director of Global Development. This multinational company is one of the world's leading manufacturers of adhesives and chemical products for the building industry with (figures for 2019) 90 subsidiaries in 56 countries operating through 83 manufacturing plants in 36 countries, each with its own quality control laboratory, and 31 research centres (including a corporate centre) in 20 countries. As at 2021, the company employs more than 11,000 staff and manufactures over 6,000 products for the building industry.

The Mapei Group has been publishing a two-monthly magazine in Italian and English since 1991. Adriana Spazzoli was the editor-in-chief of the magazine called Realtà Mapei for 28 years until 2019. 160,000 copies of the magazine are distributed all over Italy and 22,000 copies of Realtà Mapei International are published worldwide.

After Squinzi and Spazzoli died in 2019, their children, Marco Squinzi and Veronica Squinzi, took over the company as joint corporate CEO. Marco Squinzi, Veronica Squinzi and Simona Giorgetta are currently members of the board of directors that is chaired by the lawyer Laura Squinzi.

Projects

Over the years Mapei products have been used for installing athletics tracks at various Olympics after the Montréal games. They have also been used for repairing the corridors of the Sistine Chapel, installing floors in the main chamber of the Kremlin, and restoring Giotto's frescoes in St Francis of Assisi Basilica after it was damaged by an earthquake. They have also been used for the tunnel through Mont Blanc, the construction of the Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, the bridge connecting Denmark to Sweden, Three Gorges Dam in China, for constructing 240 km of tunnels serving the Tokyo-Osaka super train, for laying the floors of Hong Kong International Airport, repairing and constructing the track at the Kyiv Velodrome and for repairing the wooden structures of Basel Art Museum.

Mapei products have also recently been used to build the Panama Canal and Beijing-Daxing International Airport in China and to restore and subsequently extend La Scala Theatre in Milan. Mapei supplied additives for building the foundations of new Galeazzi Hospital in Milan and products for constructing the new bridge "For Genoa".