smow blog compact Milan 2015 special: Uffici Chair by Nitzan Cohen for Mattiazzi

Several visitors to the Milan furniture fair with whom we spoke, including some whose judgement on such matters we value more than our own, were very excited by the new Uffici chair by Nitzan Cohen for Mattiazzi.

We were, and remain, less convinced.

Yes with its rigid, unyielding, duck bill-esque form and integrated mesh backrest we can see and understand that it is something new, something different. Yes, its mix of wood and synthetic weave is a nice interplay on two epochs of office chair design, almost reanimating the historic wooden office chairs of yore through the incorporation of modern materials for improved sitting comfort, and especially for improved long-term sitting comfort. And yes, we would happily duel with anybody who argues that the version with the solid wood swivel base is anything other than a genuine visual treat. But is it something interesting? Something necessary? Or is it just a bit of formal dabbling, a nice piece of research but too niche to be relevant. A challenging intermediary step on the way to something magnificent, perhaps?

Believe us we’ve gone through this a lot during and since Milan. And still aren’t sure.

But what Uffici did unquestionably do was underscore just how little respect Mattiazzi have for the accepted conventions of chair design. Which is of course one of the reasons we keep such a close eye on what they do.

One of the first Mattiazzi products that caught our attention was Konstantin Grcic’s Medici chair, a truly monumental work of grotesque beauty – a work unrivalled in its distaste for anything approaching “civil”, and yet one of the most exciting pieces of chair design work of recent years. Similarly the Bouroullec’s Osso and Uncino chairs successfully try something new, albeit in much more accessible, almost domestic forms: yet forms which still unquestionably challenge our lazily accepted contemporary norms.

However whereas we immediately liked all the above, with Uffici…..

But as ever, what do we know.

Uffici Chair by Nitzan Cohen for Mattiazzi, as seen at Milan Furniture Fair 2015

….. here with the metal, five foot castor base

…. and the wooden base