The Flap is a vision. The Pack is a vision. In the first we can see the freedom after the fall of the Berlin Wall. In the second a society drifting, unaware. Francesco Binfaré's visions are contradictions in terms, paradoxes. This is because they frame our contemporary world. And they do it with a concreteness all their own. 
«I am amazed how the concept of a sofa can be the crucible of a vision - says Binfaré - and not everything lends itself to being this kind of container. A vision is a trick of the mind which then takes on its own reality. It finds material the way a fire finds oxygen. The oxygen of a vision is something that establishes a dialogue with the means you know and the situation you are experiencing. This makes it possible for visions to take the shape they need". 

For Binfaré this shape is a sofa. Usually. But 'usually' doesn't work with Binfaré. 'Usually' can't be applied. Because certain visions find a path of their own. Sometimes it is an intimate path, that remains closed and guarded, away from prying looks. Binfaré once made a table inspired by Africa. "It was the expression of a desire to make Africa fly: this continent, with its powerful shape, unrelated to rigid civilities. Democracy is round, bourgeois is oval, the rectangle hierarchical. But Africa's shape is unique. Of all the landmasses, the most beautiful to my mind is Africa. Seated at the Africa table each person has their own unique role, neither part of a circle nor head of the table. The particular perimeter describes a way of being human together." But this story of Africa is also a trick. It serves to define a vision: a way of seeing with a different gaze. Different from what has always been, from everyone else. 
"Pack was the magic touch. The ultimate sofa is big and soft. Currently I'm working on an installation. First a tired angel; tired of waiting for miracles. Then a tired angel rising up, a message of hope. But it is difficult to have visions today. We are in a time of waiting now. Waiting for an annunciation. I try to get closer to the mystery. Which is why I reflect on empty cathedrals, and on the great paintings that have turned into tourism. More than visions perhaps the right tool for our times are hallucinations. But hallucinations don't reckon with reality".  Which, on the other hand Binfaré's visions do. "To draw and design is to suffer. It means transforming the perfect animal in your mind into the one that came after the fall. The world of work is pivotal in this equilibrium: to serve or not to serve, serve the devil or serve the angel? Because companies take visions from those who have them, and transform them into valuable material". 

Binfaré's vocabulary also translates words into visions. 

"An entrepreneur is a person who ventures, and the venture can be Columbus finding America. So visions also fuel the engine of an entrepreneur, pushing forward and helping to achieve things, more arrogant even than the need to survive, which is a powerful force. One thing is true: "Vision is a beautiful word. It brings to mind Picasso and his blind Minotaur, who in the dark lets himself be guided by a girl with a lighted candle. But it is also a terrible word. Visions are a powerful catalyst, and can be dangerous. Ideologies are also born of visions. And ideologies have brought us death and tragedy". So then? “We always  need something to cool the vision: a Sancho Panza who has the courage to say “Stop there. I don't see what you see." 
The company is my Sancho Panza. A trusted partner, who lets my vision come to rest in the port of reality».

Giampaolo Grassi Parliamentary reporter for the Italian Press Agency Ansa. Before taking an interest in politics, he was in charge of legal news in Florence and fi nancial news in Milan.