Set of 2 easy chairs ‘Maralunga’ by Vico Magistretti
This set of 2 Maralunga easy chairs was designed by Vico Magistretti in 1973 and produced by Cassina in Italy. Magistretti made both a functional and stylish design with the Maralunga series. Thanks to an ingenious bycicle chain system, the headrest can be put straight up or folded down, making it a very comfortable chair for reading, sitting and lounging. Magistrettic claimed inspiration for the foldable backrest came from a pack of cigarettes that folds open the same way. The structure is steel, the bases are in black plastic and they are padded in polyurethane foam, comfortable and durable. This material is finished off with dacron fiberfill and polyester wadding to ensure the seats adapt to a person’s body. The cover of this set was re-upholstered in wide gray and black stripes. A few small spots on the fabric, further in very good condition. The Maralunga is still a design classic to date, no wonder Magistretti was honoured with the Compaso d’Oro for this piece.
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W: 101 cm
D: 80 cm
H: 72 / 102 cm
Seating H: 45 cm
Weight: approx. 25 kilo /piece
Material:Fabric , metal, plastic
“To be truly contemporary, one must always have a hand in the past and a hand in the future”, Vico Magistretti’s own quote sheds a light on his views. Magistretti, considered as one of the founding fathers of Italian design, was able to fuse experimental ideas with a harmonious, sleek design.
Born the son of an architect, Vico Magistretti saw the light on the 6th of october in the Milan of 1920. During the second World War, he left Italy for Switzerland. There he taught at teh local university and met Ernesto Nathan Rogers, whose humanist ideas heavily influenced Magistretti’s work.
After graduation he worked in urban design at the firm owned by his father, Pier Giulio, with the architect Paolo Chessa. He took part in the QT8 project, a post war rebuilding project on the edge of Milan where architects and planners were given complete freedom. It resulted in modern housing for veterans and in the Santa Maria Nascente, a poetic round church.
In the 1950’s he started drawing mass produced furniture and lamps. He collaborated with Artemide, Cassina, Fritz Hansen and De Padova among others. The first major success came with the world famous Carimate chair he made for the Carimate Golf Club House. A re-interpretation of the Italian rural straw and wood chair that he combined with a sleek Scandinavian shape and eye-popping red aniline dye which was only used for toys at the time. He had the window frames of the club painted in the same colour, an eye striking detail, uplifting the whole facade of the building in the hills next to lake Como.
Red would continue to be Magistretti’s favourite colour, re-appearing in various building projects and furniture designs, inspired by De Stijl and Bauhaus of which influences swept the Milan design scene at the time. He was famous for always wearing red socks, he wanted to be taken seriously as a designer but didn’t want to lose his humour doing so. It was also “a sign of his independence and unconventionality” as his friend Italo Lupi suggested.
Magistretti’s lamps like the Atollo Mushroom lamp for Oluce were big commercial successes. For this and other designs he received many awards throughout his career: two Compasso d’Oro awards (1967 and 1979) a Gold Medal at the Triennale in 1951 and the Gold Medal of the Chartered Society of Industrial Artists & Designers in 1986. Magistretti died on the 19th of september 2006, aged 85. He is, still today, considered as one of the most outstanding industrial designers of his generation.
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