Arflex

Arflex was founded in Milan in 1947 by a team of engi­neers — Carlo Barassi, Renato Teani, Pio Reggiani, and Aldo Bai — from the Italian tire company Pirelli. While explor­ing new tech­nolo­gies in rubber produc­tion, they devel­oped a new polyurethane foam and elastic tape that held great poten­tial for modernist furni­ture design. Italian archi­tect-designer Marco Zanuso (1916 – 2001) was brought in to create the first collec­tions, guided by the prin­ci­ple that the new mate­ri­als would inform the aesthetic result.

Start­ing in 1952, Arflex began to work with other Italian archi­tect design­ers to broaden its product line. Through the decades, Arflex has worked with an incred­i­ble roster of influ­en­tial talents like Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni, Joe Colombo, and Tito Agnoli.

Arflex is cele­brated for its incred­i­ble legacy of working with iconic design­ers who have won numer­ous awards, and Arflex designs can be found in museums around the world, like the Trien­nale Museum in Milan, and the Trien­nale Museum in Tokyo, the MoMa in New York, and the Chicago Athenaeum.