Know Your Sofas: The Soriana Sofa

In November of 1969, Cesare Cassina, the founder of the Italian furniture brand Cassina contacted the husband and wife team of architects and designers Tobia and Afra Scarpa with an urgent request. He asked if they could design a new type of sofa, something unique that had not been seen before, to enter into competition at an important trade show in Germany in January. With only a little over a month, they came up with the remarkable Soriana sofa (which also comes with coordinating chairs!).

Taking advantage of new techniques in forming expanding polyurethane foam, they envisioned a sofa with no internal structure. Instead, it took its form from tines of discreet metal bracing curving up from the base. This allowed the upholstery to wrap around the shape of the sofa. Tobia recounted, "At the beginning, the workers did not understand that the leather covering was not supposed to be taut . . . but to appear like a soft, creased fabric curled around this soft mass and held together by a sort of giant metal spring." Well, the look of the Soriana was beguiling enough for it to win the prestigious Compasso d’Oro award at the trade show!

The silhouette of this sofa is still beguiling designers and homeowners alike even today. Designer Rodman Primack put a Soriana suite in his Mexico City home he shares with his husband Rudy Weissenberg.

Photo: Stephen Kent Johnson

Kelly Wearstler put one (with chairs!) in her Malibu home...

And Nate Berkus and Jeremiah Brent have one in their Los Angeles residence.

Photo: Douglas Friedman

The sofa (and chairs!) are still in production and can be purchased from Cassina.

Happy designing!

Porcelain Tiles Mimic Shou Sugi Ban

Italian tile manufacturer Casalgrande Padana have created a wonderful porcelain plank tile that mimics the look of the centuries-old Japanese technique of Shou Sugi Ban, which means burnt cedar beam in Japanese. Originating in the 1700s, the method where cedar planks are charred and then sealed with natural oils, making them a unique material for building, is also known as Yakisugi.

 

 And Casalgranda Padana captures the rusticity and marvelous darkened wood grain in a porcelain tile. Available in 9mm thickness, the planks are made in a single standard size of 8" x 48".

The planks come in six different colorways but the ones that look most realistic are black and brown...

I can see some great uses for this product, adding warmth and an organic sense to any space whether on a floor or wall!

Happy designing!

History of Furniture: Memphis

For this installment of the History of Furniture, we jump back just a few decades to the 1980s to examine the furniture/interior/art movement phenomenon known as Memphis.

The name might be deceiving: the movement has nothing to do with the southern city in the United States nor the ancient city in Egypt. Arising in 1981 from a group of designers in Milan, Italy led by architect Ettore Sottsass, the name of the group is derived, surprisingly enough, from a Bob Dylan song, "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again." Tired of functionality only, Sottsass aimed to create a style that incorporated a sense of playfulness and sensuality.

Retail consultant Bertrand Pellegrin recently--and hilariously--described Memphis as a "shotgun wedding between Bauhaus and Fisher-Price." And he is not too far off. Take a look at the riot of color, mostly primary, and the big blocky shapes. 1980s design was certainly bold and nothing historically illustrates this more for us than Memphis. Angularity, asymmetry, geometric shapes, and thick overexagerated lines make up the Memphis look which is a mash-up of movements like Art Deco and Pop Art, including styles such as 1950s Kitsch (hence the stylized fake granite on laminate) and futuristic themes.

One of the most iconic designs from the movement--and perhaps the poster child for post modern Milanese design in general--is Ettore Sottsass' Carlton piece. A set of open shelving and a very small set of drawers is presented in a spiky silhouette that recalls cuneiform writing--it is at once a bookcase, a dresser, or a room divider and is often described as all three.

This graphic, thick-lined style also recalls another artist working at the time, Keith Haring (previously here). The fake 1950s granite laminate on Sotsass's Casablanca Sideboard even resembles a small Haring pattern, and the form recalls many of Haring's dancing figures. Indeed, many Memphis pieces would have benefited form being covered with Haring's signature black doodles.

California sculptor, artist, and designer Peter Shire created the Bel Air chair for the Memphis movement which was featured prominently on the cover of the most widely distributed book on the group (authored by Barbara Radice). Notice how the back of the chair incongruously sports what appears to be a beach ball.

The First Chair created in 1983 by Michele de Lucchi is minimal by Memphis standards yet just as bold and graphic...

...and would look great paired with de Lucchi's Flamingo Sidetable.

Marco Zanini's Dublin sofa harks back to furniture designs from the 1950s.

Japanese designer Masanori Umeda met Sotsass while the pair were working for Olivetti, and Sotsass invited him to particapte in the Memphis movement. Umeda came up with "Tawaraya," a boxing ring conversation pit. The second photo shows the original Memphis group piled in the middle of this creation in 1981!

Certainly the most whimsical piece of Memphis furniture is the six-bulb Super Lamp by Martine Bedin which can be trailed along like a dog on a leash...your own little pet lamp!

Happy designing!

Know Your Chairs: The Elda

For this installation of Know Your Chairs, I want to share with you a marvelous chair I have loved for decades.

Created in 1963 by Italian artist and product/furniture designer Joe Colombo, the Elda chair is a classic known only to a few. Not as popular as other pieces of furniture from the Mid Century, such as the Barcelona chair or the Tulip chair, the Elda is both puzzling and inviting. A hard shell of fiberglass (one of the first such pieces of furniture to incorporate the material) on the outside protects a soft leathered inside, shaped and contoured into puffy rectangular tubes. While Colombo took his cue for the exterior from the hull of boats, there is something almost organic about the interior upholstery configuration, like intestines.

Designer Joe Colombo with sketches for his Elda chair

Even now, the chair's object-oriented quality makes it a fascinating addition to an interior plan. It looks retro, it looks modern, it looks soft and cushy, it looks shiny and sleek. Originals are highly sought after and can cost up to $10,000. Considering that the Elda is on display at both the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan and at the Louvre in Paris, it is small wonder the chair can be so pricey.

Here is the Elda chair in a luxuriously minimalist living room by Portuguese interior designer Cristina Jorge de Carvalho.

This next image is from the home of vintage furniture collector Catherine Bujold...and it segues nicely into my next point:

The Elda chair was featured heavily on an English science fiction television show from the 70s called "Space: 1999" starring Martin Landau. It took place in the future when mankind had established a colony on the moon, Moonbase Alpha. The set designer utilized lots of great 60s and 70s Italian furniture and lighting since it all appeared so futuristic at the time... and it still does. Below are some screen shots of the chair in various episodes.

And more recently, the Elda was featured in "The Hunger Games," again, for the reason that the chair looks like it has yet to be invented!

Thankfully the Elda is still in production through Italian furniture manufacturer Longhi. I'd love to have one in my own home. If you'd love one too, give me a call!

Happy designing!