285 Eloro by Cassina

Light and yet “solid” and reassuring Eloro, the new sofa by Rodolfo Dordoni, reappropriates the extraordinary legacy of experience, knowledge and skills in manufacturing with timber begun by Cassini with the master Giò Ponti, and gives it a contemporary slant. The Milanese designer gives the tradition form by working on an elegant ash frame made up of details (like the unusual leg profile), paired with a large leather support structure that contains the seat. Big fabric cushions fixed to the back, arms and seat ensure comfort and soften the overall outline of the piece. Thanks to the special design of the timber frame, a triumph featuring a triangle and diagonals reminiscent of the warmest, most domestic version of the classic late 18th-century English bench, plays of light and see-through effects percolate through flowing volumes and narrow openings to give this sofa a wonderful lightness. Dordoni, a magician with proportions, combines angles and rounded surfaces, oblique and straight lines, minimal and more substantial thicknesses, in a subtle play of balances which keeps the supporting framework light and ethereal and puts to the test the most advanced joinery techniques developed by Cassina. While in terms of form the pairing with leather, chosen for its supporting properties, contributes vigour to the design by adding a suggestion of memory, from the manufacturing point of view it involves Cassina’s best workers in order to ensure that the leather is secured to the wood with precision, edge to edge and continuous, calling for a final touch by an expert craftsman to eliminate any irregularities. The decision to use padding to complete the project – territory that is more than familiar to both Dordoni and Cassina – results in unstructured cushions that are large but in perfect proportion, so well coordinated with the support structure that they immediately suggest the feeling of comfort and wellbeing the designer and manufacturer of Eloro had in mind. An exceptional effect produced by the subtle understanding between the sophisticated Milanese designer and Cassina with its wealth of skills, managing the material as few others are able to do and infusing the piece with much more than the idea that it is “well made”: there is a feeling that every possibility of improving the product has been canvassed. The development of Eloro completes the Pilotta family, consisting of large and small armchairs and a pouf, in which some of the features of the sofa are already noticeable: moulding of the contours, attention to the joints, and a construction technique that results in a perfect formal language. Seats and backs that provide firm support without sacrificing comfort by being solid without excessive use of leather and wood. A timeless series between present and past, designed for the most comforting settings that don’t lapse into easy extremism or seek out the new at all costs, but rather bring values like elegance, equilibrium and durability to centre stage.