Paolo Brambilla and Fabio Calvi inspired by Finnish design

28 May 2025

An invisible thread links Finnish design to Italian design, in telling it Paolo Brambilla refers to the modern era and the discovery of this connection occurred during a research trip together with Fabio Calvi, his partner in the Calvi+Brambilla studio. These suggestions were immediately translated into a project when Frigerio asked them to imagine a living system, composed of a sofa and coffee tables, presented at the last Salone del Mobile in Milan.

What are the details of the new collection for Frigerio and therefore what is the intention behind it?

It is the first time that we have worked with the company and we are very happy because we have found a lot of professionalism and a lot of openness towards our ideas. We are launching a sofa system, which will be called Felix, composed of an exposed structure in powder-coated metal tubing and in some points it doubles and is wrapped with a leather strap, so there are these coupled vertical elements that are held together by a leather band.

The idea came to us following a trip to Finland, together with my partner Fabio Calvi, to understand the architecture and historical design and we came home with many suggestions and many ideas, one of these is precisely this theme of the wrapped column that is found in many architectures of the modern Finnish period and we thought of bringing it back to the structure of the sofa. The sofa has generous but quite classic proportions, the armrest and backrest are essentially the same height, so the result is very linear, clean. Even the packaging favors softness to the maximum, so it is a precisely comfortable sofa.

Are the steel columns also a little warmed by the presence of these leather straps?

Exactly, because it is a handcrafted element that gives a certain value to the object and that according to our intentions clearly has roots in the tradition of modern design and then allows us to characterize this sofa in a rather unique way and I would say that it is a detail that differentiates it from all the others. Naturally it is a modular system for which there is a wide menu of different modules that can allow you to make combinations that are more or less wide, more or less long, or “L” shaped with peninsulas of different shapes.

Among the new products there is also a coffee table, what characteristics does it have?

We thought of combining a coffee table, a monobloc coffee table, in reality it is four elements of different dimensions: two designed to be in front of the sofa, low and wide, a third tall and narrow that is a side of the sofa, and finally a fourth that is designed to be inserted between the modules of the sofa. These objects are very clean, very simple sculptural presences, which laterally evoke the silhouette of a leaf.

Once again the inspiration came from the trip to Northern Europe, because many elements of Finnish design draw inspiration from nature, they are gestures and abstractions of forms that come from nature. Tom has a silhouette taken from the plant world, but seen as a whole it is definitely a minimalist sculpture, glossy lacquered.

As for the colors you chose for this first step, both for the coffee table and for the textile elements of the sofa, what is the direction of the colors?

For the colors we took inspiration from the general mood of the company, so there is a palette of lacquers both for the structure of the sofa and for the coffee tables in substantially neutral colors, light or dark, cold or warm, but which essentially play on the legacy of neutral.

In addition we introduced a burgundy color, an intense red that we particularly like because it is a color that allows you to obtain strong graphic effects. The combination we like the most is that of the burgundy tube in contrast with a beige bouclé fabric, therefore very material, very soft, almost as if it were a sweater that is held together by this red structure.

Inserting these elements into an interior, what kind of experience and atmosphere did you think of, and what kind of life do you imagine for these elements?

We have tuned into the characteristic of the brand that aims at a seating system focused on comfort and therefore also of generous dimensions. We have brought full faith in contemporary design and also in the traditions of the modern: Fabio and I are also passionate collectors and scholars of the entire history of design and therefore in our work there is always an important reference to the recent history of design. The house that we imagine could be suitable for this sofa is certainly a modern, clean, essential house, but with a certain softness, with an ability to welcome people.

We tend to think of Scandinavian design by identifying it with Danish design, for the brands that exist, for the designers of the past, instead what have you found more in this journey into Finnish design that has amazed you, that you did not expect?

For historical reasons there has always been a great feeling between Italian and Finnish design: I think of authors who are perhaps now a little forgotten, but who were instead much loved in Italy in the 60s and 70s. Apart from Alvar Aalto, of course, who is a great master, therefore indisputable, there were also authors like Tapio Wirkkala who designed beautiful things, crystals, ceramics. The Finns are in tune with the way of thinking and seeing of the Italians, so even today we have found affinities.

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