touch
1999 - chair - poltrona frau contract
The Touch range was designed and developed for the opening of The Hotel, realized by Jean Nouvel in Lucarne and inaugurated in 2000.
A range of seats that are all roundness, with forms exploiting the technical possibilities developed by Poltrona Frau in the automobile industry. With corners eliminated, the seams on the seats and backrests create one continuous line. The completely round seats in polyurethene foam are upholstered in tightly-stretched leather. The folding table is also dressed in leather. All the X-shaped legs are made of steel lacquered with black epoxy paint.
Hand contact, but also bodily contact with our objects is what makes them familiar and pleasing to us. It’s what allows us to domesticate them. Today tactility has been diminished by the tyranny of the visual. Touch is an affirmation of the sensuality linked to the tension of leather. This tension has something animal about it, something muscular, tonic. The elimination of corners and seams creates a continuity that cries out to be caressed. Smooth but supple, rounded but taut, stripped-down but warm, Touch, of course, calls for the brush of your hand, for you to rub and knead it, but also tends to touch you more profoundly through its simplicity and the quest for an obviousness that’s like an invitation, like intimacy.
