Design by Prospero Rasulo
The same
design has generated a family of objects – the appropriate adjustments have
made Club seats ideal for both indoor and outdoor use. Become one with nature,
merge into it, develop close, intimate oneness with the earth, lakes, bushes
and grass. The project’s poetry and ecosustainable vision are explained by
Prospero Rasulo who has shifted from the academic world and a passion for
“staging” to the world of design with the typical traits of one who is
accustomed to “creating with style”. After some winning small tables and
stools, Rasulo designed a padded sofa, a soft, rounded frame called Club for
Zanotta. The company’s insight and the trained eye led to the outdoor version
based on the same “bare” frame. «We took Club’s pure tube perimeter and made a
first prototype with the help of an expert in weaving. Rasulo enthusiastically
agreed to convert the sofa into a seat for outdoor use». The designer confirms:
«I realized that these items would be instantly recognised as ideal for extended
use, ranging from domestic to contract environments. Refined empathic objects
endowed with physical lightness and shapes that can even be penetrated by a
gaze, as in the Club series for outdoor use. Free but strong, comfortable and
cosy shapes». The steel frame was remade with a shape that followed the “skin”
of the padding, its outermost layer. Rasulo continues his description of the
product: «Which is the front and which is the back in this harmonious blend of
curves? Which is its ideal place – near a wall or centrally placed in a room?
What is the effect we create by arranging more than one of them together? And,
again, in a hotel lobby or a disco’s private lounge? On a lawn or by a pool?
Wherever you spot them, these Club seats with their spontaneously attractive
crazy cradle encourage social relations and get-togethers. I hope they invite
one to take a pleasant break». The outdoor version’s real magic lies in the
weave. The Club series’ weave follows new geometries, forming design
perspectives that are entirely unlike those created by a frontal view. The
skilful hands of this second generation of craftsmen (especially in Brianza’s
production district) are expert in wrapping and knotting the strand (in this
case the PVC strand is strengthened with nylon). They need no sophisticated
drawings – just a word, a reference image, even an abstract one, finds them at
work to see the outcome. It is amazing finding the artful course of the strand
that wraps itself around the tube, stops with no interruptions and leaves free
spaces, which are later used for the thread that passes between the seat and
the back. And we find that every three seater Club sofa requires a whole day’s
manual labour, while the armchair’s weave takes half a day’s work. «The
strengthened PVC strand is perfect: it gives the right tension, it is highly
resistant and stands bad weather».
