2-Seater sofa ‘Bastiano’ by Afra & Tobia Scarpa
Leather 2-seater sofa designed by Afra & Tobia Scarpa for Gavina in Italy in the 1960’s. The dark cognac colored leather used for the upholstery is of a high quality and feels smooth. There’s a a small crack in one of the pillows but it’s not gone through completely. Walnut frame is in good vintage condition. There’s two springs on the front, underneath the pillows that are missing but it doesn’t affect the seating comfort. Overall in good vintage condition.
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Dimensions:
W: 151 cm
D: 80 cm
H: 70 cm
Seating H: 40 cm
Weight: approx. 40 kilo
Material: walnut, leather
Afra & Tobia Scarpa met while studying architecture at the IUAV University of Venice in Venice and began collaborating professionally in the late 1950’s. Afra Bianchin married Tobia Scarpa in 1957, and from that point onward most of their major work was created jointly under the name “Afra & Tobia Scarpa.”
Tobia was also the son of the celebrated Venetian architect Carlo Scarpa, so design was already very present in his childhood. But Afra and Tobia developed their own distinct identity together with a softer, more industrial face. Their style is also more connected to furniture and manufacturing than Carlo’s highly artisanal architectural language.
Emerging from postwar Italy in the late 1950s, the duo developed a language rooted in material honesty, structural clarity, and softness. Where many modernists pursued reduction, the Scarpas pursued tension: hard against soft, precision against comfort, industry against craft.
Their pieces often reveal how they are made. Metal clamps remain visible. Leather folds naturally. Wood joints are celebrated rather than concealed. Nothing feels ornamental, yet everything feels considered.
The Soriana sofa, designed for Cassina in 1969, remains perhaps their most recognizable work — a generous volume compressed by a chromed steel frame, almost as if comfort itself had been harnessed. It rejected the rigidity of orthodox modernism and introduced something warmer, more sensual, more relaxed.
Across their work — from the Bastiano sofa to the Monk chair and Coronado seating system — there is a consistent belief that furniture should age gracefully alongside the people who live with it.
Afra and Tobia Scarpa also moved fluidly between disciplines. Architecture, interiors, lighting, retail environments, industrial systems: each project carried the same sensitivity to proportion, tactility, and rhythm. Their collaborations with Italian manufacturers such as Cassina, B&B Italia, Flos, and Molteni&C helped define the visual identity of contemporary Italian design.
Even now, decades later, their work feels remarkably current. Not because it follows trends, but because it resists them. The materials remain honest. The forms remain calm. The objects remain useful.
They also designed stores for Benetton. To this day, their projects are exhibited in major museums around the world. They have also been the subject of major international exhibitions.
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