ESPASSO | Suggestion of the Week: Paulistano Armchair

The iconic Paulistano Armchair was designed by renowned architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha and was originally commissioned in 1957 by a home decoration shop in São Paulo. The pieces were then used to furnish the famous Paulistano Athletic Club. With its single bent steel bar and cover in leather or fabric, the armchair blends industrial functionality with a simple ingenuity. The first prototypes were made with the fiber of palm trees, commonly used in the production of hammocks. Such timeless design has earned the armchair's position in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, in New York.

Mendes da Rocha is a true reference of Brazilian contemporary architecture. For the last 50 years, the architect has created buildings of monumental scale using simple forms and materials like steel and concrete. He is part of the so-called Brutalist movement, marked by a use of prefabricated concrete slabs, and is well known for his massive Brazilian Sculpture Museum in São Paulo. The first Brazilian to win the prestigious Pritzker Prize in 2006 since Oscar Niemeyer in 1988, Mendes da Rocha is a firm believer in the humanistic principle that design should be used to simply improve people’s lives.

Quick Ship Program – ESPASSO is now offering a 4-week lead time on selected items from our collection.