Gufram - Torneraj red seat

Torneraj is a seat with a revolutionary spirit. Designed by Giorgio Ceretti, Pietro Derossi and Riccardo Rossi at the end of the Sixties, it is one of the symbols of Gufram's "outside the box" spirit. As a matter of fact, Torneraj is a seat that rebels against impositions, in full radical design spirit: it tries to oppose one's weight and always goes back to its initial shape – you squash it and it comes back – and opposes the idea of the perennial novelty in things. Torneraj is an object that seeks tear and wear; we need to use it to discover its real essence, its deepest meaning. As a matter of fact, the repetitive use of Torneraj will create cracks on the surface of the seat, which will give it added value with the passing of time. The elementary geometry shapes (a fourth of a cylinder), together with the surface's primary colours (the background is a light white chequered weave), make Torneraj an almost archetypical shape, a primordial model. Even if it does not look like an armchair, it is transformed into a seat by the weight of one's body, thus playing on the ambiguity form-function, which has always been one of Gugram's distinctive traits. Torneraj is a piece realized in polyurethane foam covered with Guflac, the special and unique finish patented by Gufram that enables to make polyurethane look like leather, while maintaining its flexibility and softness. The hole in the centre of the backrest makes it easier for it to bear the weight of the body and go back to its original configuration; at the same time it works as a handle, so that the seat can be transported with ease, thus highlighting its free and nomadic spirit. And it is exactly to celebrate the revolutionary charge of this piece, which is part of MoMA's collection, that Gufram has decided to restart the production of Tornetaj, thus giving homage to its distinguishing spirit against-the-tide.

Ceretti/Derossi/Rosso

Since the mid-sixties, Giorgio Ceretti, Pietro Derossi and Riccardo Rosso have interpreted architecture and design as one of the means to participate in the social and political struggles of the time. Gathered in Turin under the aegis of the Sturm Group, of which they were the main animators, they designed together the stagings of those public venues that marked an era for the Italian show: the Piper Club and the Other World of Rimini. With the technical collaboration of Piero Gilardi, they designed the first furniture in polyurethane foam with an attitude and an anti design approach.
Over time their work acquired an educational, socio-political and cultural function, so much so that in 1972 they were invited to participate in an exhibition organized at MOMA in New York entitled Italy - the New Domestic Landscape and curated by Emilio Ambasz.

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.