A good project arises not from the ambition to leave a mark, but from the will to establish an exchange, even as small one, with the unknown person who will use the designed object.

Achille Castiglioni

In Edra, projects come from the heart. From a dream, from a journey, from an emotion. And from the love for beauty. So it was for Flowers Colletion, with Getsuen and Rose Chair armchairs by Masanori Umeda, and for Flap by Francesco Binfaré, which celebrate respectively the thirtieth and twentieth anniversary this year. They are real icons. How was an object born and what makes it ‘iconic’? Achille Castiglioni said that “a good project arises not from the ambition to leave a mark, but from the will to establish an exchange, even a small one, with the unknown person who will use the designed object”. These products are recognizable signs and emblems of a certain way of being, of a certain lifestyle, of a new everyday life. Flap is an expression of freedom, a hymn to life.   

“I dreamt of a rolling red plain – says Binfaré - Only a tongue of land arose from the surface. In my dream I felt like a powerless god, when the rain suddendly stopped and I awoke. The first words I said to myself were: “Freedom is what is left. Freedom emerging like a lucky island of red earth. I took a sheet of paper and I cut out the shape I had seen in my dream. La langue rouge, I decided to call it.” Flap is a new type of sofa, always equal to itself, but able to support the search for comfort for each one of us.

Flap and Flowers Colletion are able to elude every defining or typological trend, every debate on the relationship between form and function: they are simply beauty. What is extraordinary is that they have not become icons over time, they were born icons. The peculiarity of forms of Getsuen and Rose Chair, the sensuality of concavities savored by the eye even before sitting down, and the red velvet often used to upholster them, immediately established them as unique and inimitable objects. Then there is the production phase, which combines advanced technology and high craftsmanship. Since 1990, the “Flowers” by Masanori Umeda have told a story that belongs more to Alice in Wonderland than to our world. A world dedicated to whoever is trying to catch fragments of dreams, nature and beauty in life. In Edra, ‘icons’ come from freedom. Iconic are those projects that do not belong to predefined categories or types, but that are innovative and that tell beautiful life stories. “Freedom is what is left”. An icon, perhaps.