Vermelha, Fernando e/and Humberto Campana, 1998

Edra was founded in 1987, in Tuscany, a land rich in history, culture, art and productive wisdom. Its name comes from the Greek word “esedra” – philosophical place of conversation and encounters. Edra brings forth innovative projects, born from an original union between tradition and innovation, state of the art technology, manual craftsmanship, continuous research for new forms, high performance, and new materials.

Research / Edra uses research to create its own projects and to make its products. Advances in research, both material as well as typological, have the latest technologies and the most sophisticated manual abilities behind every detail.

Technology / Advanced technologies, coming from all backgrounds and applied to design, are very skillfully yet unobtrusively becoming a part of Edra products. Hi-tech simply becomes the best way to solve a project. 

Manuality / Manual operation is behind each of Edra’s products. This is  what makes each serial production unique. Each Edra item is “hand finished”. This is the only way to finish them, since a process performed with such wisdom and care guarantees the highest quality. 

Comfort / The change of social habits influences the relationship between the body and objects, which leads to the demand for the creation of new forms. By interpreting new behaviors , Edra provides exceptional  comfort that breaks all the rules.

Materials / The materials used have within them sensory, visual, tactile, and emotional qualities. Through  material, treated with great respect and the highest  values, Edra reaches new meaningful goals in form.

• Favela, Fernando and Humberto Campana, 2003
• Rose Chair, Masanori Umeda, 1990
• Getsuen, Masanori Umeda, 1990
• Corallo, Fernando and Humberto Campana, 2004
• Topolone, Massimo Morozzi, 1991
• Bois de rose, Massimo Morozzi, 2012

Valerio Mazzei
President of Edra

Valerio Mazzei was born in 1955 in Ponsacco. He lives and works in Tuscany. He studied Economics at the University of Pisa and at the same time he began to work in the family business.

In 1987 he founded Edra. From that day on, he has been president of the company and, driven by the desire to create products of high quality that will last over time, he leads the company, with the hope that the products can be passed down to future generations because of their design quality, aesthetics and execution.

Massimo Morozzi
Architect and designer

Massimo Morozzi, architect, was born in Florence in 1941. He lives and works in Milan. Until 1972 he was a member of the Archizoom Group. From 1972 to 1977 he coordinated the Montefibre Design Center for the development of textiles for interior decoration, helping to found the discipline of Primary Design. Associated with  the group  CDM (Milan Design Consultants) he developed image projects (Airports of Rome), the product lines (Louis Vuitton-Paris). In 1982 he opened an independent studio and directed his attention towards the field of home product design and generally to the area of  consumer goods. Functional innovation and strong representation are the focuses of the latest achievements with Alessi, Cassina, Driade, Fiam, Giorgetti, Ideal Standard, Mazzei, Tendentse, Edra, Progetti, Metals, and Sintesi. He has developed important projects and has accomplished a lot with Japanese companies including: the car concept for Nissan, the logotype of Crea. He has been art director at Edra since its debut, for which he designed various products, including the versatile modular system Italian Landscapes. He has given lectures and seminars in Amsterdam, Sao Paulo, Melbourne, Tokyo and at the Domus Academy, European Institute of Design in Milan. His works are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Musée des Arts Decoratives in Paris.

Francesco Binfarè
Designer

He ran the Cesare Cassina Centre from 1969 until 1975.  He was Art Director at Cassina from 1973 to 1988. He has been designing for Edra since 1992 and for Magis since 2004. From 1967 to 1980 he produced a series of drawings which represent the most important analog source of research. Within the Centre Cassina, Binfarè transferred the processes of artistic practice into the design research and involved architects in the creation of myth products of Italian design. He coordinated

the development of projects for the New Domestic Landscape exhibition at Moma in New York (1972). He carried out research trips to India, USA, Japan (1970-1973). He promoted experimental initiatives like Iron arm for the edition of avant-garde models, as Environmedia for the use of interactive media in the practice of the project (1973). In 1980 he created the Centre for Design and Communication that worked for Cassina, Marcatrè, De Padova, Venini (1980-1992). In the area of art direction he invented the concept of the event, giving the space created a theme and a title, both independent from the commercial function. Some of his most interesting works are The Bridge 1977, Le Corbusier, The flowers grow on ruins 1978, the Time of Water or of the Bathers after Marx 1982 for Cassina, Design, self-portrait with father and architectures 1979 for the Milan Triennale, New Adam and Eve 1985 for Venini, My right hand 1996 to the Milan Gallery. He taught at the Domus Academy in Milan, the Royal College of Art in London, the European Institute of Design in Milan and has held workshops and conferences in many cities around the world. In 1992, at a time of intense dialogue with Pierre Restany, while finishing the most important paintings of the Inner Emotional Paths he was called by Massimo Morozzi  to design for Edra. The sofa L’homme et la femme, at the Kastern Greve Gallery, during the Koln Messe in 1993 inaugurates the beginning of a fortunate collaboration with Edra, of a season full of unique and fascinating stimuli and success with the invention and design of models such as Flap (2000), On the Rocks (2004), Corneille (2006), Scheherazade, Sofa (2008) that manage to combine the power of innovation and commercial success. He prefers the design of decorative objects, sofas in particular because they challenge the Other, Space and Communication, the spheres of work he loves the most and because more than others, they must respond to the questions of behavior and relationships.  He believes that  design in this age of mass communication is closer to art than to science, and that technology, like for the great painters of the classical period, is the secret to guard and cultivate. For this reason, he also believes that it is not possible to think of the design without the understanding and collaboration with the company. The Sofa Sofas (2008) and Brenno (2010) for Edra are the result of a new period of expression. In 2011 he designed for Edra the Sfatto Sofa and Armchair.

• Vermelha, Fernando and Humberto Campana, 1998, a step of the realization
• Tatlin, Mario Cananzi and Roberto Semprini, 1989
• Tatlin, Mario Cananzi and Roberto Semprini, 1989
• Flap, Francesco Binfarè, 2000
• Flap, Francesco Binfarè, 2000
• Flap, Francesco Binfarè, 2000

Design factory. The Made in Italy

The Design Factory project originates from the XfafX “Festival To design today” and is part of the design driven activities promoted by Professor Alfonso Acocella through the Material Design Laboratory (MD) of the Department of Architecture, University of Ferrara. Design Factory intends to bring together, study and present through multiple cultural formats (live events, interviews, videos, articles, directories of products, workshops, exhibitions, ...) the various Italian entrepreneurial realities related to the world of design in order to understand the connections that link them to market strategies, the designers and creative individuals in general, the products and also the pools of research; academic ones in particular. In line  with the aims of the MD network – promoting new forms of research related to the field of design, materials, technology, consumption, cross-media communication – the Design factory project aims to connect and critically interpret specific “case studies”: the work of innovative companies, the work of visionary designers, and the quality of revolutionary objects, in order to investigate and analyze the points of similarity and originality, the spin offs, strategies and achievements in the competitive process of design, production and sale of the product. Inspired by the concept and content of the book La fabbrica del design. Conversazioni con i protagonisti del design italiano [The factory design. Conversations with the protagonists of Italian design] (edited by Giulio Castelli, Paola Antonelli, Francesca Picchi) containing a substantial and significant number of stories told  by the entrepreneur protagonists of the famous “Made in Italy”, the distinctive emblem of the refined production of the second half of the twentieth century. The factory design project continues to bring to world attention the understudied labor organizations. Factory design for the first time has shifted the attention of its public from the figure of the designer to the one of the entrepreneur, emphasizing how only due to the presence of enlightened decision makers, strategically-oriented towards entrepreneurial innovation risk and able to understand the value of experimentation and quality, was it possible, in the middle decades of last century, to perform the great miracle of the Made in Italy. It is essential today to question again the role that companies, both known and established within the global market as well as new and emerging ones, are playing within the changing crisis context in the promotion of Italian design all over the world. In an era of great economic and cultural changes, the new market strategies no longer favor the characteristic small-medium sized Italian company, which thanks to the simplicity of its product line, could experiment with forms, and innovate quickly. Today, because of the generalized technological support, the experimentation has become a cornerstone of practical production and labor costs do not make our country more competitive than others. But the area in which our country can still stand out in the international market is certainly connected to the larger and inclusive quality of its products, the identity value of its holdings and the wealth of memorable life experiences that Italy is able to offer as cultural heritage alongside the physical and material products placed on the market today. The Design Factory project aims to intercept and investigate a wide range of case studies drawn from the Italian business world and comparing them in order to extract their peculiarities and innovative structures so as to provide a horizon of knowledge as detailed and complete as possible to be used not only within universities and the same companies, but useful for promoting the image of Italian design on the international arena.

Thanks to the digital platform of institutional channels of communication xfafx.it and materialdesign.it that are growing – with the inauguration of the project aimed to communicate with the companies – the live streaming of the event held in Tassoni Palace Estense, the Design factory project will be able to reach large numbers of users affected by design issues thus activating cross-connections and creating a network of know-how of high strategic value.

Elisa Poli
Lab MD Material Design
Dipartimento di Architettura, Università di Ferrara