Know Your Sofas: The Mah Jong Sofa

Welcome to another installation of Know Your Sofas, and here is a sofa you should definitely know!

Created in 1971 by artist and designer Hans Hopfer (1931 - 2009) for Italian home furnishings brand Roche Bobois, the original Mah Jong sofa was called simply the Lounge Sofa (or Forever Sofa). The concept was for a low-slung modular seating system that can be combined in many different ways depending on what the owner wants. This suited the new way of seating that people were discovering in the 1960s and 1970s when the concept of a stiff sofa or settee was becoming obsolete. People more and more were lounging in their homes while watching television, relaxing, gathering, playing...simply living more casually than in times past. You can see that Hopfer's drawing below shows a sort of cloud-like, pillow silhouette.

The final product took the form of three individual elements--a flat square, a back, and a corner section--that can be stacked, combined, laid out, and rotated to form a myriad of configurations. While certainly low-slung, it looks in the first photo below like the Lounge Sofa started out placed on some thicker bases to bring them up from the floor a bit more...

...but the sofa is now known as the Mah Jong Sofa, named for the resemblance of each section to Mah Jong tiles. The concept of stacking, joining, and rearranging is even stronger now. It is still available through Roche Bobois and since 1990, it has been their best-selling sofa! It can be purchased to sit either directly on the floor or to be laid out on low platforms with inset legs that give the whole structure a sense of floating off the ground. The mattress-style cushions are entirely hand-stitched in an Italian atelier.

The Mah Jong sofa can now be ordered in fabrics designed by haute couture houses! Missoni Home created versions based on their iconic flame-stitch and other signature patterns from the house.

Legendary designer Jean Paul Gaultier lends his own patterns: French white and navy maritime stripes and the intricate curlicues of world currency...

...while Kenzo Takada took inspiration from the beauty of Japanese kimono fabrics for his collection.

You can find out more about this classic sofa at the Roche Bobois Mah Jong site!

Happy designing!

Know Your Chairs: The Roly Poly by Faye Toogood

While relatively new to the world of iconic furniture, British artist Faye Toogood's arresting Roly Poly chair has earned its place in the canon of classic contemporary furniture.

Toogood says when she first introduced it in 2014 as part of her Assemblage 4 series, people said the Roly Poly chair reminded them of a baby elephant or a 1960s pop chair. It makes me flash on The Flintstones with its Neolithic chunkiness. But in fact, Toogood says it was inspired by motherhood! Her website says, "The fibreglass chairs are hand-cast in moulds by a skilled, small-scale, British manufacturer and made to order in colours raw, charcoal and cream. Further editions of the Roly-Poly chair have explored working with different solid materials and finishes, from brushed aluminium to gold leaf. Faye Toogood's Assemblage 5, entitled Earth, Moon, Water pushed the boundaries of manufacture with chairs cast in solid cob composite, patinated bronze and crystal barium glass."

This delightful piece can be seen in design-forward spaces all over the world...

The marvelous Roly Poly chair also comes in a dining chair iteration as well as a sofa...

The chair can be purchased through Toogood's lifestyle site, here.

Happy designing!

Famous Homes: Olana

Frederic Edwin Church (1826--1900) was an American artist who was of the second generation of the Hudson River School and the pupil of Thomas Cole, the school’s founder. Church and his wife Isabel bought a plot of land on a hillside near the town of Hudson in New York and built a house for themselves called Cosy Cottage. When their two infant children died of diphtheria in 1865, they consoled themselves by traveling to Jamaica for six months. Upon returning, Church bought an additional 18 acres at the top of his property and began to plan a mansion based on a style that was very popular at the time, a style that is referred to as Orientalism. Although the term itself is no loner politically correct, the Victorians used this term to denote anything opposite of the Occident (the Western world) which included countries and cultures east of the Mediterranean Sea and Southern Europe. They had a preoccupation for what was to them the exotic nature of these lands. And we use this word today without malice to indicate this period of Victorian interest in motifs and designs from this part of the world.

Named after a fortress castle in ancient Greater Persia (in what is now Armenia), Olana was constructed between 1870 and 1872 after the Church's spent a year and a half traveling throughout Europe and the Middle East. When they returned home, Church hired architect Calvert Vaux and worked closely with him to realize a fanciful home based on architecture they had seen in Beirut, Jerusalem, and Damascus. The resulting stone, brick, and polychrome-stenciled villa is an unusual mixture of Victorian structural elements and Middle-Eastern decorative motifs from different times and places. In his book GEOGRAPHICAL SNAPSHOTS OF NORTH AMERICA, author Donald G. Janelle says of Olana that Moorish elements mix with contrasting Italianate themes. And the hybrid, which served not only as a home but as an artist studio as well, is unique even to the Orientalism of the period.

The official Olana website has the story of the house after Mr. Church died:

"When Frederic Church died in 1900, Olana was willed to his youngest son Louis Palmer Church. The following year Louis married Sarah Baker Good (known as “Sally”) and the two of them lived together at Olana. After Louis’s death in 1943, Sally stayed on at Olana until her death in 1964 at the age of 96. She was the last Church family member to inhabit the estate, and she willed the property to her nephew, Charles Lark. In the mid-1960s, the Hudson River School had not yet seen the revival of its popularity, and Olana was seen as a curious remnant of the Victorian era. Lark planned to sell the land and auction off the contents of the house, including all of Frederic Church’s art. The art historian David Huntington had for some years been researching Frederic Church’s art and had been visiting Olana. He learned of Mrs. Church’s death, and after ensuring that her nephew would give him a little time, began to contact individuals who might be able to assist. Olana Preservation, Inc. was formed and began the two-year task of raising funds with which to purchase the property and contents of the house.

At the end of the two-year period, Olana Preservation, Inc. had raised over half the funds necessary to purchase the property, but was unable to raise the full amount. Lark made arrangements to have the contents of the mansion put up for auction, and to sell the property to a developer. At that moment, in September of 1965, Life Magazine ran a story on Olana, with the title “Must this Mansion be Destroyed?” This galvanized local and national attention. By June, 1966 the New York State legislature under Governor Nelson Rockefeller had passed a bill authorizing the purchase of Olana, with Olana Preservation contributing the funds it had already raised. Olana opened as a New York State Historic Site in June, 1967.

Olana Preservation, Inc. disbanded, but several of its key members rejoined to start the non-profit Friends of Olana in 1971, which changed its name to The Olana Partnership in 2000. The Olana Partnership continues to play an integral part in supporting New York State Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation’s efforts at Olana."

Here is a selection of his paintings which displays his propensity for the lyrical, the lush, the Romantic, and the exotic.

This historic home is open for tours and events. Visit the official Olana website for details.

Happy designing!