ART_DESIGN

During Milan Design Week Loro Piana Interiors pays tribute to the work and philosophy of the Milanese architect and designer Cini Boeri in the centenary of her birth

Words Domenico C

The installation "A Tribute To Cini Boeri" in the Cortile della Seta, the headquarters of Loro Piana in Milan.
“A Tribute To Cini Boeri” is a persuasive-immersive journey that highlights the interaction between individual and domestic space. At the Cortile della Seta, Loro Piana’s Milanese Headquarters, Cini Boeri’s most iconic pieces are dressed in the exclusive Interiors fabrics of the maison. Produced by arflex, Boeri’s furniture pieces follow a leitmotif dear to the designer: create private spaces shared by people who want to be together.

Cini Boeri was a pioneer in the design of a house composed of separate rooms with independent exits and a common environment. A place of encounter, sharing, joy, spaces created on harmony. The installation, designed in collaboration with Archivio Cini Boeri, hosts in the central room, the Strips system, while the other spaces are dedicated to Boeri’s iconic products. An interactive journey that invites guests to experience the pieces, to touch and sit on them, following Boeri’s teaching that furniture should be as alive as the user.

For the occasion, Loro Piana Interiors has dressed (of charm) the most famous furnishings of Boeri. A precious array of pieces, from the modular sofa Strips system, designed by Cini Boeri in 1972 that revolutionized the sector and awarded with the Compasso d’Oro in 1979, to the Strips bed.

STRIPS, Arflex, 1972. Photo Ziglioli, Ballo. Courtesy Archivio Cini Boeri
Not to mention the Pecorelle sofas inspired by the works of Christo Vladimirov Javasev and Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon, masters in the art of landscape painting and by nature as a muse.
PECORELLE, Arflex, 1972. Photo Ziglioli, Ballo. Courtesy Archivio Cini Boeri
Or the Bobo and Boborelax armchairs, examples of an informal aesthetic, and the sinuous and rounded shape Botolo high and low chairs – all dressed for the occasion in the most refined Loro Piana Interiors fabrics.
BOBO, BOBOLUNGO AND BOBOLETTO, Arflex, 1967. Three different density polyurethane foam sections for three different functions. Photo Masera. Courtesy Archivio Cini Boeri
BOTOLO, Arflex, 1973. Two-height armchair. Photo Arflex, Anghinelli. Courtesy Archivio Cini Boeri
The Botolo chairs are reinterpreted in soft Cashfur, an incredible synergy of cashmere and silk produced in a special colour in a limited and numbered series of 100 pieces.
Botolo chairs reinterpreted by Loro Piana Interiors
For the modular Strips sofa Loro Piana chose Cashmere Raw while Strips bed and Boborelax armchair were in naturally elastic and resistant Tiepolo wool.
The Strips sofa reinterpreted by Loro Piana Interiors
The Strips bed reinterpreted by Loro Piana Interiors
The Boborelax line reinterpreted by Loro Piana Interiors
The Pecorelle instead are upholstered in unique and lustrous Pecora Nera®, a fabric obtained by working the dark-coloured fleece of New Zealand merino sheep, in two shades, to create a game within the game: a soft and comfortable flock where the light Pecorelle stand out among the dark ones.
The Pecorelle sofa and armchairs reinterpreted by Loro Piana Interiors

The centenary of Boeri’s birth coincides with the 100th anniversary of the founding of Loro Piana. The installation follows the narrative of the architect. A joyful analysis and a research that reinterprets the pieces of furniture with the eyes of the contemporary. An immersion in the deepest ideas of Cini Boeri, still alive today, thanks to Loro Piana, Archivio Cini Boeri and arflex. A journey into the domestic dimension that corresponds to the human dimension par excellence. A procession in our inner worlds.