Starting from the avant-garde artistic groups of the last century, Italian design is an endless source of inspiration for movements, expressions and ways of being. They find the Italian line into the authentic manifestation of the culture of project. What is, then, the secret of Italian design? Where does its timeless spirit hide: a spirit that keeps on driving the evolution of the discipline?

Gianfranco Frattini (Padua, 15.5.1926 – Milan, 6.4.2004) is one of that skilled generation of architects and designers, who have marked the Italian design movement of the last century. Frattini’s projects are characterized by a formal elegance, which is able to transmit clearly, and simply the ideas and thoughts that led to their creation. At the beginning of his career (1952 – 1956) he was a collaborator of Giò Ponti. Over the years, Gianfranco Frattini will develop a personal and symptomatic approach to the design based on a careful formal and structural research.

After a detailed analysis of the designer’s career, Tacchini decided to realize two of Gianfranco Frattini’s projects: the armchair Agnese and the seating system Sesann. Agnese and Sesann have the same soul of design, with two different visual configurations. Designed in 1956, named after the street in which was located the last Frattini studio – via Sant’Agnese –, Agnese comes out from the idea to produce the archetype of the informal armchair. It is characterized by an upholstery seat – geometric and basic – with a classical linear and wooden base. Agnese, the armchair, is produced in a very accurate way and with extreme fidelity to the original design; moreover, following from Frattini’s original project, the armchair is accompained by a matching ottoman. Agnese is just the beginning of a comprehensive project that aims to support the revival of a great designer’s style but also an entire atmosphere of interior decor. On the other hand, Season is characterized by an organic and informal shape, made by wrapping a tubular metal around a soft and upholstered seat.