Moroso 2008

Moroso presented a large number of new products last month in Milan, designed by Patricia Urquiola, Ron Arad, Tokujin Yoshioka and an expanding army of young designers.

The Italian upholstery master and the Spanish designer seem to be done one for the other, their prolific collaboration bring us several new appealing products.
The Tropicalia series is the evolution of her famous Antibodi collection, a geometric frame of steel tubing covered with plaiting, creating different pattern and colour combinations. The materials chosen for the weaving gives every product of the series a different mood: playful and colourful with polymer threads, sophisticated with leather strings, elegant and sober with monochrome polyester cords; a perfect example of Urquiola's eclectic design vision and her meticulous attention for detail.


The Bohemien series is characterized by fluid and irregular shapes interpreted with a modern leather capitonnè and accessorized with a silk shawl and rich set of cushions; the result of the designer's exploration of past and present, of craftsmanship and industrial techniques.

Reverse is a bold plastic chair born after the idea of using plastic as if it was a textile that folds over, to the reverse, to create a continuous pleat along the line of the backrest and armrests.

Ron Arad has got to be known as a designer with a great focus on research, you can love him or hate him but his approach to design is never banal. He signs the Pixel sofa, composed of several rectangular-shaped units of various heights and of different density, the pixels, arranged in different compositions. The result is dazzling but, I have to say, not so comfortable.
 
Arad's Wavy chair was designed to have the plastic appearing to be a soft fabric draped over the metal frame, but the sensation I had when I first saw it was totally different, to me it appears like a bug cocoon or something like that.

Tokujin Yoshioka presented the final version of his Panna chair and the new Bouquet chair, made of hand-folded fabric squares sewn one by one, with infinite patience, to completely cover the internal surface of the egg-shaped shell.


London based duo formed by Nipa Doshi and Jonathan Levien bring their Indian influenced design with the Beautiful Backside sofa, which has no backrest but a composition of large floating cushions in festive colours and different shapes.


Edward van Vliet signs for Moroso the Sushi collection featuring rich textiles and embroideries, and the Rontonton lamp made of a perforated plastic and allumium sandwich sheet.



Tomek Rygalik designed the Tennis chair, which got that name because like a tennis ball the chair is made of two empty, curving shells joined by heat.