UniFor supports Lake Como Design Festival

"The theme of lightness, which we chose this year, can be expressed in countless ways and finds its reason for being in all different forms of creativity," says the festival's creator and artistic director, Lorenzo Butti.

In the halls of Palazzo del Broletto, in the center of Como, the exhibition "The Form of Lightness" took place, a chronological journey exploring the evolution of the theme of lightness over 100 years of chair design. Among the 28 selected chairs embodying this journey, from Bauhaus to today, was also the Parigi armchair, designed in 1989 by Aldo Rossi for UniFor.

With the Parigi, Aldo Rossi designed a chair that appears rigid like wood but is actually soft to the touch. A curve forms the armrests and feet, shifting the entire structure out of regular inclination and creating an object imbued with dynamism and lightness. The Parigi armchair was reissued in 2021 as part of the ARCHIVIOUNIFOR collection.

"With all my architectural work, I am increasingly fascinated by the design process of the armchair for UniFor: it started as a sketch or a note made on the margin of a project in New York. It seems so beautiful to me, it's like in a game, where you are one of the few who do not follow the rules."

"Off all my work in architecture, I am increasingly fascinated with the design process for the armchair for UniFor: it began as a sketch or a note at the edge of a project plan in New York. It seemed very beautiful to me, it’s like in a game: you are among those few who are not following the rules."

Aldo Rossi, I quaderni Azzurri 1968-1992, edited by F. Dal Co, The Getty Research Institute - Electa, Milan 1999, n.38, February 1989.