Cristiano Toraldo Di Francia and Adolfo Natalini founded Superstudio in 1966 out of a dissatisfaction with the status quo in contemporary architecture and design and a desire to promote radical design ideas. Over the next few years, Superstudio expanded to a team of six members and continued to explore the revolutionary possibilities of their discipline. The scope of their work spanned from interior and industrial design to architecture and architectural theory. However, the group ultimately came up with very few commercial products or physical structures. Most of their work took the form of polemical exhibitions, academic papers, lectures, printed matter, and videos. One rare example of their furniture design is the present model seating system, which epitomizes their tendency to challenge the rationalism and functionality of traditional furniture with an almost absurdist visual language.
“Our problem is to go on producing objects big…cumbersome, useful, and full of surprises, to live with them and play with them together and always find ourselves tripping over them until we get to the point of kicking them and throwing them out, or else sitting down on them and putting our coffee cups on them, but it will not in any way be possible to ignore them.”
—Superstudio, in “Invention Design and Evasion Design”The “Bazaar” sofa is a modular unit that is composed of individual seats – eight in the present example – made of fiberglass-reinforced polyester resin and covered in faux fur. Most often, the sofa is displayed in a semi-circular configuration, but the chairs can also be used individually or placed facing each other in a row. The seat backs extend above the sitter's shoulders, curving over the head to create a cocoon or spaceship-like atmosphere. Manufactured by Giovanetti in a town outside of Florence, the sofa was available in two versions: a white exterior with brown upholstery, as shown in the present example, or a black shell with blond fur. Archival photos, presumably promotional materials, also show a version of the sofa with vibrant pink fur. A design drawing of the model in the collection of the Centre Pompidou suggests that the sofa was showcased at a 1969 furniture fair in Trieste.
Superstudio promotional photo of the Bazaar sofa, 1968. In the January 1970 issue of Domus, the “Bazaar” sofa was illustrated in an editorial photoshoot that embodied the counter-cultural ethos of the era: four women dressed like angels in white gowns stand alongside a shirtless man within the semi-circular seating unit. The accompanying text likened the "Bazaar" sofa to Cinderella's pumpkin that transforms into a carriage. The allusions do not end here: the name of the sofa, "Bazaar," is a possible reference to a large and vibrant marketplace but is also a playful homophone of the word "bizarre." While the sofa is a rare example of the group’s practical design ambitions, the design is, first and foremost, a vehicle for progressing radical ideas.
Though Superstudio disbanded in 1978, a number of their projects are celebrated today as icons of what is now collectively referred to as “Radical Italian Design.” The "Bazaar" sofa, both conceptually and aesthetically, serves as a perfect encapsulation not only of Superstudio's design philosophy but also of the types of groundbreaking designs that emerged from Italy in the late 1960s.
Provenance
Galerie Downtown, Paris
Acquired from the above by the present owner, 2020Literature
"Zucca," Domus, no. 482, January 1970, p. 49
Andrea Branzi, The Hot House: Italian New Wave Design, Cambridge, 1984, p. 76
Maria Cristina Didero, SuperDesign: Italian Radical Design 1965-75, New York, 2017, p. 217
Property from a Private Manhattan Collection
43
"Bazaar" sofa
circa 1968
Fiberglass, fabric upholstery.
Each chair: 59 1/4 x 36 x 38 1/2 in. (150.5 x 91.4 x 97.8 cm)
Overall: 59 1/4 x 127 1/2 x 112 1/2 in. (150.5 x 323.9 x 285.8 cm)
Manufactured by Giovannetti, Pistoia, Italy. Reverse of two chairs with manufacturer's paper label printed BAZAAR/DESIGN SUPERSTUDIO / PRODUZIONE GIOVANNETTI.
Estimate
$30,000 - 50,000
Sold for $35,560
Benjamin Green
Associate Specialist
Associate Head of Sale
bgreen@phillips.com
+1 917 207 9090
Design
New York Auction 5 June 2024
