Anyone can start a revolution from the sofa. But only a few are able to start a revolution with a sofa, turning an everyday object into a tool with which to imagine a better, and not always obtainable, future. This edition of the Tacchini journal is dedicated to them – the artisan dreamers, the activists of doing. In it, design becomes language and the words anchor shapes and materials to a mission that is not limited to solving a problem, decorating a room or selling a product but goes well beyond.

Bearing in mind the etymology of the word ‘project’, derived from the Latin projacere, “to thrust forward”, Marco Zanuso stated that to design means to “thrust one’s own creativity beyond the confines of history”. From one trend to the next, a fleeting fancy and a technological breakthrough, this commitment to idealism returns cyclically in the practice of design. Or, perhaps, it never completely goes away. In the pages that follow, Utopia is the common thread that spans decades, embodying itself each time in a new form and a new promise, but always offering us a reason, a direction, an objective to achieve.

The project Le Mura by Mario Bellini represents the manifesto of a radical design that went through all the Italian 70s: design was as an answer to questions not only of aesthetics, proportions or ergonomics, but also of social content. The result is a project of inexhaustible strength, that does not wear out after fifty years. The theme of modularity is central, and is already expressed by the name chosen for this sofa system: just as the large boulders that made up the imposing Roman walls, the seating elements come together in the design in a theoretically infinite process. This way, the sofa lends itself to small but also very large environments, without ever losing its stylistic aspect. Tacchini rediscovers this precious project and reissues it, respecting the original design by highlighting the vocation to comfort.

Forms that are lost in time, modeled by the erosion of the wind, sun and rain, become sculptures that almost seem to emerge from the ground. Simple and primitive, smooth and perfectly polished, solitary or close to each other, united in a perfect joint. Available in two sizes, the tables born from the creativity of Noé Duchaufour-Lawrence are entirely made of Breccia Bresciana or Fior di Pesco Carsico, almost zero kilometer marbles, extracted near the place of production of the tables themselves, as expressly requested by the French designer.

An ethereal and floating sculpture that transforms matter into a design tool. A warm and suffused glow that divides the space, but at the same time unites it. Available in two sizes, Studiopepe’s luminous screen is made of cocoon resin fiber – a plastic material capable of creating soft and enveloping shapes, almost like clouds, ephemeral but extremely consistent – manually sprayed on a metal structure.

Heavy elements are linked to lighter ones, like ink marks drawn on a sheet of paper to form a character, a letter, an ideogram. Clear contrasts of thickness translate into incisive graphic expressions: to give life to these unmistakable figures in marble and ash wood, Monica Förster is inspired by calligraphy, the art of writing in an elegant and regular form. The tables are available in two sizes and color variants, Breccia Bresciana with walnut-stained structure for a warm and delicate finish, Fior di Pesco Carsico with dark gray structure for more decisive and rigorous tones.

The story of two elements, which rub against each other until they fit together perfectly. Monica Förster revisits the classic coffee tables with central support by creating a breaking point in the traditionally flat and smooth surface of the wooden top, which almost seems to become a stone mill with the characteristic central hole in which the marble leg is inserted. These coffee tables are available in two sizes and color variants, with base in Breccia Bresciana or Fior di Pesco Carsico and top in solid open-pore ash, stained walnut or dark gray.

An important wooden base, an almost suspended marble top and a central leg that runs along its entire length, supporting it. Three elements, a meeting of proportions and balances that can be reconfigured in a multitude of cantilevered tables with an asymmetrical design, in which once can see the shapes of a trampoline or the appearance of the famous Fallingwater house by Frank Lloyd Wright. The tables are available in two sizes and color variants, both with an open-pore solid ash base in order to reveal the grain and intensity of this noble material.

A totem capable of transforming any environment into a temple of conviviality. With Togrul, the designer Gordon Guillaumier goes beyond the limits of the material to create a table suitable for both domestic and contract environments, available in the round and oval version. The base of the table is in rigid polyurethane with material finishes in clay, made with 100% raw earth and troweled by hand by master craftsmen. The marble top is available in a round version, with different finishes. The sculptural base of Togrul is a perfect synthesis of lightness and solidity.

The exclusive re-edition of the Pigreco chair by Tobia Scarpa for Tacchini (2021) responds to a desire: to transmit a “sense of space” to a traditionally static object, thanks to the proportion between solids and voids, and the harmony between straight and curved lines. The triangle acts as a dynamic element, reinforced by the two rear legs that guarantee stability to the seat, without compromising the feeling of lightness that pervades the object. Among the novelties 2022 Tacchini presents the new limited edition The Blue Window in a special finish chosen by the architect Tobia Scarpa, in a limited edition series of 100 exclusive pieces. Made in shades of blue with aniline dye, the seat is also characterized by the particular upholstery, the Ria fabric by Kvadrat designed by Raf Simons, inspired by the painting technique of pointillism, in which the fragmented colors deliver a subtle luminous effect and a thick and comfortable texture.

Natural tones intertwine with different motifs, leaving room for small colored details that catch the eye with distant Bauhaus references. Contrasts of patterns, textures and colors take shape from the overlapping of the rugs, enhancing the manual skills and craftsmanship of the manifacturers who intertwined them. The large, short-haired mats are available in striped or checked motif, light or dark colors. The small rug, with longer pile, takes up the colored detail of the mat on which it is superimposed. Both sizes are made of natural wool, hand knotted in Nepal, with yellow, blue or aqua green colored details.

A small sphere of light, which almost looks like a pearl still enclosed in its shell, dazzles with absolute purity. Ceramic and opal glass are dressed in elegance and simplicity, in a sculptural lamp that highlights the delicate combination of materials linked by the same chromatic shades.

Hand-woven natural rattan, cement and bush-hammered limestone meet in this item, in a playful mix. Unusual superimpositions of sources give life to a lamp in which different materials, united by the same iconographic purity, write a new chapter, in the endless dialogue between craftsmanship and design.

Archetypes, lines and geometries come together. Colors and tactile sensations take shape. Studiopepe delivers poor materials and ancient workmanship to design: from this union a family of vases is born, one that evokes the materials and techniques that have shaped them, highlighting the intrinsic beauty of absolute simplicity.