IT'S A SOFA STORY

AN OBJECTIVE WORLD OF AUTONOMOUS INTERLOCUTORS OF LIVING BY ALBERTO DAPPORTO

In an age characterized by the speed of transformations and of living as an “ephemeral and reversible” act, the design product becomes, symbolically, the element that resists and rides change in an interconnected world, where the only trace of identity seems to be the series of gestures, habits, and rituals that distinguish individuals and their ways of living. Since the 1960s B&B Italia has nurtured an approach based on innovation, change, and foresightedness in the living needs that we constantly develop, the trends that are renewed and the cultural phenomena, drawing on product research and analysis that form the pillars of design, and working with the best creative minds. It is from a multiplicity of viewpoints, nourished by the image, to make the icon a symbol of hybridization practices of the city, bringing inside it a synopsis of typically extraneous practices and activities: work, retail, hyper-connection, and leisure. In the logic of the private sphere that has merged with the esthetics and dynamics of the goods-based one, the sofa embodies the fetish-object that physically encloses a user, that materializes an idea in the third dimension and that becomes an immediate, measurable unit of contemporary life. In some ways, it is the image that leads the object, not the other way round: by activating the emotions, what sounds extremely contemporary is the pop art “Bomb” the passion that sabotaged clichés and proposed new scenarios, capable of making us smile or feel melancholic. When Driessen focused on the sofa Le Bambole (design by Mario Bellini, with its history of campaign, B&B Italia 1972) and chose to shoot the work of one of the icons of the Factory, we clearly grasp the ability to reflect on how the image might shake up the public’s and the sector’s opinion, how the design product could represent a cultural point in society for the purpose of spreading a precise message. Seeing the model Donna Jordan, one of the American symbols of Warhol’s Factory, laughing and dancing bare-breasted next to or lying on Le Bambole is an explosive image because of the historical context in which the sofa was born, that is, when women fought for their freedom and their rights. An image that half a century later finds new relevance. It was the modernness of the collection, with its task of baring the object, that gave Le Bambole its value and icon, and so, in fact the original idea was rethought and updated in 2022, redesigning variants that would adapt to the contemporary and be updated with respect to sustainability, choosing generous, curvy, enveloping, feminine shapes. In today’s living landscape, the space and the time of domesticity, understood as coordinates, are taking on an unknown value

that is becoming increasingly hard to decipher, and the inhabitant, like a flaneur, lives while temporarily pausing in the middle of the traffic of a world that is passing, moving seamlessly from one interior to another. We look at architecture less as ideas, but we are oriented based on the chain of interiors: suffice it to think of the effect that the window has, but also the public bus stops or the urban furnishings, have on our ability to get our bearings. If the idea of “one house forever” now loses substance from the viewpoint of investment, for reasons related to culture, the economy, and lifestyles, what grows exponentially is the idea of an investment in a design product like the sofa, for we see within it values of heritage, quality, responsibility, durability, and design, but above all, of the effect of the image. What guides the orientation of choices, which only deems issues that are hard to measure, also depend on the normalisation and positioning of the act of modelling, which seems to have become a fundamental condition for the planning of the contemporary sofa, as it has to fit into spaces that are becoming smaller and smaller, and adapt to migration from one place to another. The chance to compose a large number of seats, starting from modular elements, like the iconic BIG BABOL in recycled plastic, follows the logic of the large image readable at a distance. The shape is recognizable, a radical change compared to the future of 1960s and 1970s design. The range of the typology and the behavior of the inhabitants calls for ever new solutions, also in hybrid materials. Modular design — the system of typologies — is the potentially endless response to the user who lives in pluralities and is modelled on the image of more and more fragmented needs, a second-hand condition that still demands high quality. The stylistic element has become increasingly structural, so the design product acts as a mirror of our moods, lives, and interpersonal relationships. Objects that are present, simultaneously and synchronically, in many homes — just like a song, a sound, or an artwork — that place memory and imagination alongside the desire for identity. In this sense, the sofa becomes a universal object that speaks all languages and finds itself at the intersection of the signs of an era. A territory in which you can sit, rest, and reflect, is also that of dreams and narration. It is no coincidence that B&B Italia sofas have also become cult elements in the world of movies, going from Visconti’s interiors to the alien living rooms of Men in Black (1997), but also for Gen Z, who seek in design — starting from an idea of upcycling — new and more aware products. Today, the narration of design must move along with the transformations of the digital world, that acts as the new Pantheon, separating the known from the unknown. The same way Paolo Nava sought the framework also in the supporting parts, as if to remove from the function, but also from the icon, the object. He attempted to intercept the trend of living in a hybrid way, that would optimize the changes in time, all the way to the present one. It would be interesting to revise this thought to make it even more complex. Many of the young designers capable of entering into the design of domestic living could start a shared discussion for the sofa and the project. For instance, the table, like Alanda, designed by Paolo Piva in 1980, produced in a new edition in 2018. But this would require a whole new chapter.