Arflex

In 1947 Carlo Barassi, engineer of Pirelli, together with Renato Teani, in the financial dpt. of Pirelli, Pio Reggiani and Aldo Bai, founded the company Ar-flex (“flexible furniture”), which became later arflex. They worked together with a young architect, Marzo Zanuso, and began to experiment the use of foam rubber and elastic tapes for the furniture market.
In history and life of a company, there are events and moments of special meaning, which are awards for merit acknowledged by everybody. Those first memorable moments in the history of arflex coincide with the company’s creation, in modest premises in Milan, in Corso di Porta Vittoria. It was there that the first manufacturing and sales team was formed, but arflex company was presented to the public for the first time only in 1951, at the IX Triennale in Milan, after two years of experimentations. This early contact with a wider audience in the context of an avant-garde artistic event is intensely significant in the company’s history, because this experimental interest, if not separated from commercial purposes, shows the will of creating high technological and esthetical level products, based on deep research and experimentation. The Golden Medal at the IX Triennale assigned to Lady armchair, was above all recognition of arflex manufacturing philosophy.

Arflex products are present in the collections of the most important museums in the world such as the MoMa in New York, The Chicago Athenaeum, the Milan Triennale, the Tokyo Triennale museum and the contemporary furniture museum in Ravenna.