Cover Italian architect Antonio Citterio

Architect Antonio Citterio reflects on his enduring partnership with Flexform, the Italian furniture brand he has worked with for over 50 years

It started with a friendship between two kindred spirits—architect Antonio Citterio met furniture entrepreneur Pietro Galimberti while they were studying at Italy’s Polytechnic University of Milan in the seventies. Galimberti and his family run their furniture company Flexform in Meda, Italy, a city known for its finesse in sofa production; they took a chance on Citterio, who was then 23 years old and fresh out of university and embarked on an enduring collaboration that has lasted for more than five decades since.

“My contact person [from Flexform] has always been Pietro Galimberti, [who is] a few years older than me, with whom I have always been on the same wavelength, the same way as it happens today with Saul Galimberti, who belongs to the new generation of the family. This ease of relationship is the reason why at Flexform, it is enough for me to sketch a new idea, and then study together how to find the formal solutions,” shares Citterio.

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Above The Flexform Cestone sofa designed by Citterio features a metal structure upholstered with woven strips of cowhide

Founded in the 1950s, Flexform has gone from strength to strength, tapping into brilliant minds like Citterio’s to create elegant and utterly comfortable designs that suit the needs of modern life. “The 1960s and 1970s were years of the tremendous economic boom in Italy; I wanted to create products that responded to the needs of an ideal Italian family, adopting an approach that’s inspired by the values of normality. This approach, I’m proud to say, has played an important part in shaping Flexform’s identity,” says Citterio.

Since then, the Italian architect has created best-selling pieces that include the Groundpiece, a sofa first designed in 2001 with a generous width that’s made for lounging. Another key design is the Cestone, which features a checkerboard back crafted with woven strips of cowhide.

Here, he tells us more about these sofas and how his relationship with Flexform has developed over time.

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Above The Groundpiece sofa from Flexform

How has your collaboration with Flexform evolved over the years?

Antonio Citterio (AC): With a family-run industry, personal relationships play a crucial role: it is the people you work with that make each new project a completely different experience from anything that has been done before. In my collaboration with the Galimberti family, there has always been so much to learn, so much to imagine and try to achieve together.

This uninterrupted collaboration has allowed us to work on continuous improvements [centred] around the same idea of normality, through formal research that has always tried to express itself through an everyday language, measured on an idea of simplicity, and linked to the use of high-quality materials.

In your opinion, what are the key qualities of a good sofa? How are they reflected in the Cestone?

AC: I think a sofa should simply be comfortable and function well and Cestone does this, like any of my sofa designs. Cestone, however, explores the theme of weaving—a technique that I adopted to obtain enveloping surfaces where the structural element is also expressive. It combines experimentation with materials associated with tradition, with innovation and outdoor furniture. This research on the expressive value of materials is used not only in Cestone, but also in Crono (designed in 2016), and in the most recent, Lee (created in 2021).

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Above The Lee Outdoor armchair and settee
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Above The Cestone sofa

Which of the Flexform collections are among your favourites?

AC: I’m very attached to the Groundpiece sofa [which he designed in 2001]. People didn’t understand it at first, but it was a breakthrough in forging a more contemporary lifestyle. It took a while for the approach to work, as the way that we live has changed [since], too.

My idea was that a sofa could be a place where you eat, work or relax. I took the legs off the sofa, placing it directly on the floor and moving it into the centre of the living space. In this way, the sofa was free from its classic position against the wall, freeing up the space around the sofa, and making room for added seating and storage elements. 

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Above The Crono sofas Photo: Kasia Gatkowska

You’ve mentioned in past interviews that sustainability should be part of the design process. How is this addressed in your recent projects?

AC: Sustainability is an area I’ve been working on for years. Now, it is difficult to be completely sustainable, because not all materials used in the design are 100 per cent sustainable. But what is changing is the approach to materials and products over the years. When I start designing a product now, I’m already thinking about the end of its life.

However, the most important part must be done by the chemical industries—they must find solutions to create sustainable materials, which means that these materials must not only be [able to be] reused, but they must also not emit harmful gases into the atmosphere during their production process.

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