By Athina
Our weekly appointment with the Design Icon arrives at the seventh installment. After the impressive Segmented, it is time for the Senior by Zanuso, an iconic armchair that we have chosen after the Barcelona and the PLR 1 Lounge Chair.
From the very beginning of his career, the architect, designer, and urban planner has been exploring new technologies and new forms. He is particularly inspired by the fields of aeronautics and automotive design, both in terms of materials and industrial processes.
In the 1940s, Zanuso collaborated with Pirelli to create car seats using foam rubber, a material recently developed by the company founded in 1872. He was fascinated by it and immediately understood its potential.
By precisely studying the thicknesses and densities of the expanded rubber necessary for supporting the human body, he decided to experiment with it as padding for sofas and armchairs intended for domestic use.
The Senior is one of the first armchairs to be made with foam padding, abandoning the traditional and outdated springs.
This is not the only innovative aspect of the armchair: always drawing inspiration from the serial production of the automotive industry, Zanuso conceived the Senior starting from the idea of elements produced separately and then assembled. The elements were designed to be worked flat on a bench and then assembled using the “assembly line” system for mass production. All this was made possible by Arflex, the company that supported Zanuso’s experimentation and became one of the first industries producing mass-produced parts.
The metal structure is molded, the suspension is on elastic bands, and the tips are made of brass. This disassemblable armchair was a simple and quick product to produce in large quantities and was widely imitated.
Despite being revolutionary in many ways, the Senior does not represent a complete break with the past. In fact, although modernized with the clean and simple lines typical of modernist design, it inevitably brings to mind the classic bergère, the armchair that has been popular since the eighteenth century (for reference, here is one of our articles from a while ago).
A happy synthesis of innovation and tradition, the Senior is a true icon of the golden age of Italian design.
By the way, we are already working on next week’s appointment: if you have suggestions, tips, or ideas, give us a shout!
