Chairs are to furniture makers what bread is to bakers: a cultural product that is harder to make than it seems. The exhibition of new seating at Milan Design Week, which runs from April 18 to 23, will feature a lounge chair called Tortello because it resembles a piece of stuffed pasta; 44, updated by Polish-Brazilian designer Jorge Zalzupin, is a year-old chair. it was inspired by a kangaroo, as well as an experimental chair designed to rot.
To mark the tenth anniversary of London design studio Barber Osgerby’s collaboration with Northern Italian furniture brand B&B Italia, Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby have designed a seating system reminiscent of one of Italy’s most beloved dishes. The rounded sides and seemingly hollowed-out centers of their new Tortello sofa and armchair (pictured)—their first foray into the brand’s upholstered furniture—give the pieces an uncanny resemblance to stuffed pasta.
The partners deny that they deliberately targeted such a literal reference. “The first project we did together was the Tobi-Ishi table, which was very sculptural,” Mr. Barber said. They followed a similar design strategy going forward, “starting with a very graphic and playful shape.”
Their goal was to achieve a form that could float freely in space—one that could fit into a living room as easily as a hotel lobby. “B&B sofas are traditionally very formal and straightforward,” Mr Osgerby said. “We thought it would be interesting to do something with a more organic shape.”
The couple developed the silhouette by sending sketches and models to the B&B Italy team. “Until it’s finished,” says Mr. Osgerby, “it will look more and more like spaghetti.” On display from 18 to 23 April at the Milan showrooms of B&B Italia, Durini, 14; bebitalia.com. — Laura Mae Todd
In 2013, Danish-Italian design partnership GamFratesi collaborated with Danish furniture company Gubi to create the Beetle, a chair inspired by round insects with spindly legs. TEN: Beyond the Beetle recreates the modern classic form in a unique tribute created by 10 international artists and designers. Organized by Marco Sammicheli, director of the Milan Triennale Design Museum, the exhibition will take place in the mosaic dressing rooms of the city’s Bagni Misteriosi (Mysterious Baths), a complex of buildings from the 1930s located in the city’s Porta Romana district. , there is a swimming pool.
“There are absolutely no restrictions. We want them to be able to do whatever they want,” Gubi chief brand officer Marie Christine Schmidt said of the participants. Alternative works include weaving, neon, sound, fashion, ceramics, architecture and sculpture by artists such as Arthur Arbesser, Rachaporn Chuchuy, Daphne Christoforou, Payne Quadrelli, Matthew DeMarco, Adam Nathaniel Fuhrman, Martin Groh, Frank Maria, Jimena Muñoz and Simon Wick .
“The goal was to use every scrap of fabric left in our studio,” Mr. Wieck, a 26-year-old Danish fashion designer, said of the pile of materials he stacked with scraps of a disassembled chair to reshape it. Mr. Wick uses old and recycled clothing, as in (di)vision, the sustainable fashion brand he founded with his sister Nanna Wick. Ultimately, his recreated Beetle was made from jackets, plastic bags, tablecloths, scrap fabric, recycled foam from damaged chairs, and even the cardboard that the original Beetle was shipped from.
Ten: Beyond the Beetles will be shown at Bagni Misteriosi (Via Carlo Botta 18) from April 18 to 22; Gubi.com. —Melissa Feldman
In 2019, designer Luca Nichetto collaborates for the first time with the historical porcelain manufacturer Ginori 1735 to present candlesticks and diffusers that diffuse scents inspired by the court of Catherine de’ Medici. Now his contributions have been included in Ginori 1735′s first homeware collection, Domus.
These include a swivel chair and ottoman upholstered in Rubelli fabric, a table with a top in embossed leather that doubles as a tray, and three lamps produced in collaboration with Barovier & Toso, a company that has been in business for seven centuries. The glass lighting was produced in Mr. Nichetto’s home country. , Murano island, near Venice.
The LaVenus lounge chair (pictured) features a reclining seat inspired by Botticelli’s Birth of Venus and is covered in Rubelli Oriente Italiano jacquard fabric. The gilded steel legs echo the decorative edges of the porcelain plates, Mr. Nichetto said.
The collection will be exhibited at Ginori 1735, Piazza S. Marco 3, from 18 to 23 April; ginori1735.com. —Melissa Feldman
This year, the Brazilian company Etel will celebrate the 30th anniversary of its designer collection and relaunch the Kanguru chair, designed in 1969 by the architect Jorge Zalzupin. Mr. Zalshupin was born in 1922. He immigrated to Brazil from Poland in 1949 and after naturalization changed his name from Jerzy to Jorge.
He admired Brazilian modernist architecture and began making furniture for the houses he designed. With details such as brass bolt heads connecting the seat and back, the Kanguru chair is a classic 20th-century design, but even vintage examples are hard to find.
Etel CEO Lissa Carmona, daughter of company founder Ethel Carmona, collaborated with Mr Zalszupin (who died in 2020) on a book about his work in 2014 and set it in striking Sao Paulo. The house remains a museum. “He had the most avant-garde studio in Brazil,” she said. Mr. Zalzhupin believes the Kanguru chair, with its molded wood frame and metal frame and finish, “tests the limits of materials,” she adds. “I need to touch things,” the architect said in 2012, “details give me joy.” The exhibition runs from Monday to April 23, Etel Showroom, Via Pietro Maroncelli 13, Etel Design. — Pilar Veradas
Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos is known for her colorful, large-scale sculptures and installations incorporating existing objects, which she wraps in crocheted or knitted fabrics. She first attracted international attention at the 2005 Venice Biennale with her chandelier “A Noiva” (“The Bride”), made from 25,000 tampons. But the circumstances that led to the artist’s new collaboration with the French furniture company Roche Bobois arose from more mundane circumstances.
Ms. Vasconcelos needed a lamp and went to the company’s showroom in Lisbon, where she lives. A woman who worked there recognized the artist and expressed the company’s desire to work with her.
“I said I could only do things related to my art,” Ms. Vasconcelos recalls. The end result is Bombom, a compact sofa with vibrant colors and layers reminiscent of the artist’s paintings, with a back that swivels to allow people to sit in different orientations. (They can also be deleted.)
“The sofa is like a sculpture,” Ms. Vasconcelos said, calling it a dynamic object. Bombom also offers a street version (pictured) in pastel colors – “1950s style,” she says. Will be presented at Salone del Mobile, Hall 6, Stand C30, April 18–23; roche-bobois.com. — Pilar Veradas
Upon entering Prowl’s space at Alcova, visitors are greeted by a strange sight: a dismantled dark brown plastic stackable chair covered in dirt.
It’s an unconventional way to launch a new product, and that’s the whole point. This talk will focus on what happens to a new Peel chair at the end of its life, when all the legs, seats and cushions, made from compostable and biodegradable materials, begin to return to the earth.
“Some people might say, ‘Oh, that’s not the sexiest,’” says Lauryn Menard, founder of a design studio in Oakland, California. “But we actually think that’s the sexiest part.”
In keeping with the principle of “begin with the goal in mind,” Ms. Maynard and her co-founder Bailey Mishler conceived the chair with its final legs in mind. Ms Maynard said their work in furniture and fashion had taught them that no matter how beautiful or well designed a piece, “tastes change and people keep changing”, so their goal was to “create something that that just needs to be something that lasts.” “As long as we want it. ”
They collaborated with M4 Factory, which specializes in recycled plastic products, to blend hemp fiber (a by-product of hemp) with biopolymers to create the molded chairs. The kit includes a hemp foam pad that can be composted in the owner’s backyard.
In the police car exhibition space, located in a restored century-old abattoir, two (fully assembled) Peel chairs will be placed on a platform made of hemp blocks. On the wall hangs a fourth Peel chair in its infancy, packaged in papier-mâché.
The chair is not yet available for purchase, but Prowl is in the process of licensing it. For now, Ms. Mishler said, they hope it will help people “relax the awareness that consumerism is over and that this is what it looks like.” 62; prowlstud.io. — Megan McRae