Gufram - Alvar blue chaise longue

Sitting on the ground, but ready to be moved elsewhere, Alvar is a recliner in structural polyurethane foam that preserves the lightness and versatility of the sixties. After fourty years it has certainly matured in spirit, but deep in its soul it keeps its hippie attitude alive. At the time it believed the future lay in the innovation of polyester yarns but did not want to abandon its belief in natural fabrics. This utopia has become a reality thanks to modern-day fabrics.
Conceived in the years of radical design, Alvar is one of the first products with which Gufram faced the challenge to produce modern furniture as opposed to the status quo of those in the manneristic style. Alvar is evidence of how successfully that confrontation which had begun in 1968 has now finally ended in favour of products like these, which were already then dynamic and fresh and had organic lines, free from expected frills.

Giuseppe Raimondi

He graduated in Turin in 1967. Thanks to his researches into the field of experimental design and the expressive possibilities of new materials, he was creative director of the company Gufram from 1966 to 1970. The innovative pieces Giuseppe Raimondi created, as well as his leadership, contributed to giving the company international renown. In 1966, together with artist Ugo Nespolo, he created for Gufram Margherita, a table with matching chairs, and later the arm-chairs Alvar (1967) and Mozza (1968). After that his curiosity towards new materials led him to create a series of mirrors, tables and lamps which played with the reflection of forms and light. So he worked also in the lighting, as well as in the textile, interior design and ceramics fields. In 1970, together with others, he founded the studio A.ba.co and later opened a studio on his own in Turin.

Gufram

Gufram is an Interior Design Italian brand globally known for pushing the limits of industrial design. With its Radical Design spirit and its nonconformist experimentation linked to aesthetic, technological and material research, Gufram has created seats and interior design icons that have entered collective imagination: playful, subversive and desecrating products with a POP soul, willingly designed as anti-design items. Gufram was born in Turin as an artisanal entity, where the craftsmen specialized in upholstery, cabinet making and furniture padding met the artistic and international avant-garde with the goal to give birth to a new way of understanding modern furniture. Since 1966 Gufram has been producing design icons that have become unique in form and value thanks to the cross-contamination between the industrial design approach, the artisanal creation and the imaginative flair typical of art. Gufram's unmistakable furniture items like the couch Bocca, the chaise lounge Pratone and the hall tree Cactus (just to name a few), also known as Domestic Sculptures able to interpret the contact point between both the artistic and the design worlds, are now displayed in the most beautiful houses and in the most renowned museums in the world.