Description
Description
Designed by Afra and Tobia Scarpa for Tacchini, the Basilan chair is a piece that embodies one of the most original moments in the duo’s design research, the one where the exploration of materials and construction techniques opened up territories that were then unexplored in Italian design in the 1970s. Its modular rattan structure, enriched with metal details and leather ties, accomplishes the rare tour de force of functioning simultaneously as a frame, ornament and spatial definition, making each component an aesthetic gesture as much as a technical solution. The braided surfaces seem almost alive, carrying in them the memory of the hands and gestures that have woven them, transforming the chair into an organic and tactile expression that goes far beyond what design alone can claim. This delicate balance between visual lightness and structural strength, between geometric precision and handcrafted warmth, is perhaps what makes the Basilan so difficult to classify and so impossible to forget: it belongs both to the world of contemporary design and that of artisanal tradition, without ever sacrificing one to the other. As sovereign isolated in a reception space that multiplied around a dining room table or arranged in a residential interior that cultivates the authenticity of its materials, the Basilan chair is a piece that speaks to those who know how to listen to what objects have to say.
