ROD seating series from Living Divani



Essential beauty

ROD

Piero lissoni 2012 for Living Divani



The news from the Milan furniture fair never fails to excite, some years more so than others. 2012

may have had less flash but the offerings from GRAYE makers still rose to the occasion

and exhibited sophisticated objects of clean modern form. The concepts of subtle detail, precise

and delicate engineering were prominent both at Living Divani and Porro. Being very much

into the technical area of design myself, I never mind when a new collection holds mostly

technical improvements and upgrades to existing product. New woods, new lighting

and sensors in cabinetry, updated and improved lacquer techniques and innovations in

upholstery frame construction shown here with the newly released ROD sofa.

In my last posting I featured a new cabinet from Piero lissoni for Porro which shares some

traits with the ROD sofa also by Lissoni. Both perched, almost stilted, clean

simple structures with some heft atop misleadingly delicate legs. Using the strength

of steel for their framing, the Tiller cabinet leaving this structure somewhat visible while the ROD

sofa buries its steel into the frame, hidden from view. This inner frame of tube, bar and

 drawn steel provides the perfect opportunity to push past other steel framed sofas.

Allowing the supporting body to be minimized in thickness and mass, giving up the invitation

of supreme comfort to the cushions, plush and supportive with a simple design detail.

A smart, fashionable seat tuft finished with a matching garment button.

Dealing with steel framed European upholstery for the last decade I often am surprised

with what this type of construction allows a sofa form to become. At times allowing the

designer to create avant-garde and sometimes outlandish forms, and at times as with ROD

to bring a form with an unreal lightness. A piece that for a split second makes you hesitate

to really drop down onto the seat for fear of hearing a crack or snap. The ROD stability calms

your nerves after first sit and with detail rich cushions of multiple foams and goosedown

 topping the sturdy frame eliminates any lingering skepticism.

An architect 'engineered' sofa is pretty hard to beat.

Available to order soon at GRAYE Los Angeles

http://www.graye-la.com/

http://www.livingdivani.it/

Porro news from Milan - TILLER

True to the spirit of Porro and Piero Lissoni, elegance, simplicity, skill and quality

are at the center of the stage this year in Milan.

Tiller, a completely new pair of cabinets was impressive, the ease and comfort of

it's form proved a perfect platform for a new wood for Porro. A deep smoky eucalyptus

shown here at the fair.

A clean, substantial carcass perched on 4 slim steel legs, vaguely concealing its clever supporting

structure which is left visible inside the cabinet. The structure being a robust steel frame and actually a continuation of the legs, which in addition to carrying the structure also holds the thick glass shelves and

houses the door hinges. Hinges at 180 so each door opens flat to the cabinet, within

the doors are hidden magnets keeping them closed or open.

Gorgeous.

Subtlety can speak volumes

If this smart structrual design is interesting, Lissoni has
developed several series to see at Porro.com.
Glass wardrobes 'storage air'
Glass libraries 'ex-libris'

Salone del mobile 2012 - LIVING DIVANI

SUPER EXCITED TO SEE THE STAND THIS YEAR.

More to come soon.

graye staff.

WHEN A WALL IS NOT A WALL



After over a decade of unrivaled success of WALL, a sofa seating series by Piero Lissoni, GRAYE is excited about some news coming from Milan this month. The EXTRASOFT sofas we have had on exhibition in our windows are just getting ready to head ‘out the door’ with a reengineered version for outdoor use! GRAYE has been so very happy with Los Angeles’ interest and desire for this model we represent and are looking forward to adding it to our growing offering of luxury outdoor furnishings.

As with the standard EXTRAWALL and EXTRASOFT modular series this new model will have the same grand scale and clever ability for all parts to be freely linked to configure and reconfigure without limitation. A key feature to its amazing success, being a top seller since its introduction as EXTRAWALL back in 2002.

Another piece of great news from Living Divani concerning the EXTRASOFT is the introduction of NEOWALL last year. This news for us at Graye is especially sweet, as the interest in our EXTRASOFT units on display had many left behind due to the extra-large format size of the series modules. Happily the NEOWALL answers the desire of our clients to get the feel and look of the EXTRASOFT in a unit smaller in scale. The scale actually formatted almost exactly as the sofa that began the WALL series in 2000 simply called ‘WALL.1’, so Lissoni essentially developed a ‘soft’ version of WALL to follow the success of the ‘soft’ version of EXTRAWALL, aptly named EXTRASOFT.



WALL.1 - 2000




NEOWALL.1 - 2011

I know of no other sofa that has gone on to spawn 9 versions of itself, each one more successful, and after now 9 models of wall available I believe we can properly tag ‘wall’ as an icon of modern design. In 2005 Michele De Lucci and Interni selected EXTRAWALL for permanent exhibition in the gardens of the design museum at the Milan Triennale. Produced in fabric textured concrete, it still sits behind the museum next to 9 other icons of modern Italian design. 

 

CONCRETE EXTRAWALL IN NATURE WHERE IT BELONGS, ON THE
GROUNDS OF AN ICONIC MUSEUM

http://www.livingdivani.it/
http://www.graye-la.com/
www.lissoniassociati.com/