The Company

Blindex^® is a particular case in the history of the industrial brands in Brazil. In a relatively short time, the reputation has been enhanced to an expression that is now a brand where in the past was better known as a factory, at that time named as Santa Lúcia Cristais Blindex^® Ltda.

Founded on January 9th of 1951 by the banker Louis Dreyfus, Santa Lúcia Cristais was installed in a 1,200 square meter hangar located at Rua Barra do Tibagi, in the town of Bom Retiro, in São Paulo. A little oven – hidden on the bottom of the hangar, where only a few persons could get in – two or three cut machines  and  some easels and stages used as a cut table were all the equipment that were available. In the factory, the almost 70 employees could produce on average 1,300 square meters of strengthened glass a month from imported six millimeters thickness sheets.

The prospects of the little factory were good, but the limited facilities and space, forced an early review of the plans. Around 1953, Santa Lúcia moved to Rua Tocantins, 114, also at the town of Bom Retiro, in São Paulo. A 4,000 square meters build was rented, and big part of it was reserved for three or four quenching ovens, carefully protected from prying eyes by four meters of high walls.

Certain elements of the process were hand crafted – such as the drilling and cutting of glass, for example, were performed manually – in three years Santa Lúcia tripled its production and prior of the decade of 1950, was already producing strengthened glass in different sizes and thicknesses for architecture, store façades and curved glass for the automotive sector, windscreens, the first ones made in Brazil. With the growing demand, once again the capacity of the company was exhausted, and at that time, the only option was installing a self site, to be built in a low urban concentration place, with good electrical web, windy and dry weather. In 1961, at 10 years of age, Santa Lúcia inaugurated the new factory at the town of  Parque Novo Mundo, next to the new built President Dutra Road, in São Paulo. At the façade of the 11,000 square meters were printed three words: Vidros Blindex^® Segurança. They identified the factory and in a certain way prevent the social reason adopted a few years later – Santa Lúcia Cristais Blindex^® Ltda.

In 1979, Pilkington arrived in Brazil, a British worldwide float glass manufacturer that had bought the Santa Lúcia Company. By the time of the brand acquisition, the brand Blindex^® already constituted an important business asset and its maintenance was considered very strategic.