Afra, Tobia and the chair soft like a cat

摘要

"You're soft like a tabby cat!" a friend of Carlo Scarpa exclaimed in Venetian dialect, as he sank into the armchair designed for Cassino by his son Tobia, together with his wife Afra Bianchin. So, in 1969, the original n. 944 chair, similar to an enveloping quilt, gets its name from a cat and epitomises its key characteristic, softness. Afra (1937-2011) and Tobia Scarpa (1935), who would share 40 years of life and career together, are designers who understand very well that the conception process is profoundly linked to the construction phase: they focus on aesthetic research and experimenting new materials.