Originally Published: 2010-03-07

From traditional type seating with modern variations to the outright avant-garde, Italian furniture manufacturers are offering a wide range of choices for consumers in early 2010.
Jasper Morrison’s recent Trattoria seating for Italian furniture brand Magis offers a variation on traditional dining chairs. While the frames of the new Magis chairs are a fairly conventional beech, Morrison updates the seating type with seats and backs made of a transparent polycarbonate plastic. The combination is a departure for the English designer Morrison, whose work typically does not shout out for attention, preferring to make quiet statements with attention to detail.
The traditional wood occasional chair is also given a new interpretation in the new Spring chair by another English designer, Damian Williamson. Designed for leading Italian furniture company De Padova, the new wood chair is not named for the upcoming season, but rather for a discernable springiness in its construction. Made of either ash or wengé, the De Padova chair is reminiscent of Gio Ponti’s classic Superleggera dining chair, introduced in the 1950’s.
In softer seating, designer Leonardo Perugi’s new Drop sofa and armchair for Cerruti Baleri display a multi-functionality that recalls the classic 1960’s seating work of Joe Colombo. The Drop sofa converts to a day bed and the filling of CFC-free polyurethane is covered with removable leather. A black synthetic fabric on the sides of the seating provides a crisp aesthetic contrast.
Italian design superstar Patricia Urquiola has gone Eastern with her new soft seating system for recurring furniture client Moroso. Urquiola’s new Fergana sofas and loungers feature platforms of ash that are designed low to the floor, a furniture characteristic often associated with traditional Asian interior design. For the upholstery, Milan-based Urquiola designed a playful Pac Man-like motif that pays tribute to the early video game. The new Moroso series is also designed to be easily recyclable at its end-of-use.

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