What the work is
Marco Zanuso designed the Lady armchair for Arflex in 1951. The Metropolitan Museum records metal legs, upholstered foam and rubber: materials central to understanding the chair beyond its exterior silhouette.
Arflex’s own history page, the main account used here for the company, says the firm was founded in 1947 by Carlo Barassi, an engineer at Pirelli, with Renato Teani, Pio Reggiani and Aldo Bai. The name Ar-flex means “flexible furniture”. The founders worked with the young architect Marco Zanuso and began to experiment with foam rubber and elastic tapes for the furniture market. This is the maker’s own account of its past.
How it was made
Arflex’s early work with Zanuso explored foam rubber and elastic tapes for furniture. The company presented Lady at the 1951 Milan Triennale, where it received a gold medal.
Arflex says the company was shown to the public for the first time only in 1951, at the IX Triennale in Milan, after two years of experimentation. It describes that contact with a wider audience, at an avant-garde artistic event, as significant for the company. In its reading, the gold medal for Lady was above all a recognition of Arflex’s manufacturing philosophy. Arflex dates the company’s “experimentation-research” to 1950 and describes it as an approach in which the shape of an object was given by the materials and technologies used.
What works
The design makes a productive study of how upholstery can determine an object’s character. Its padded body and metal legs distinguish the parts that receive the sitter from those that lift the chair above the floor.
What does not
The outer covering cannot reveal the complete construction. Judging the chair from its profile alone misses the materials beneath; assessing a surviving example also requires attention to whether its upholstery has been replaced.
The Arflex page gives no construction detail for Lady itself, so what lies under the cover is not something it can answer.
What it influenced
The Triennale award gave public recognition to Arflex’s experimental approach. The chair also entered museum collections, including the Met and MoMA, where it can be studied within the history of industrial furniture design.
Arflex’s history page lists Lady among four Zanuso models it names: Lady in 1951, the Sleep-o-matic sofa in 1951 (a gold medal at the X Triennale), the Martingala armchair in 1952 and the Fourline armchair in 1964 (a gold medal at the XIII Triennale). It also records that between 1951 and 1954 the company made car seats designed by Carlo Barassi for the Fiat Topolino, using the same foam rubber and elastic tapes.
Is it worth your time
Worth examining alongside a construction account. Follow how the soft materials relate to the supporting parts, and distinguish the documented 1951 object from later editions or restorations before drawing conclusions about its manufacture.
