A star is reborn: B&B Italia's Camaleonda sofa system is back

50 years old and still got it. Celebrated Italian architect Mario Bellini's iconic Camaleonda seating system has been relaunched and there's a lot of love in the air.

By B&B Italia, Mario Bellini, and Simon Keane-Cowell for

B&B Italia

October 8, 2020 | 10:00 pm CUT

Hello, old friend. I've missed you.

OK, maybe that's a bit over the top, as we've only recently met in the flesh for the first time. But, in a way, I’ve known you for years – from design books, old magazines and catalogues, and the occasional meander through an online auction site. You're an icon. Poster child for an era of fast-changing social norms and behaviours, where Letting It All Hang Out was rapidly becoming the new in.

Micro-architecture for interior-architectural spaces: the user becomes co-creator as Camaleonda's modular programme allows them to create the seating landscape they need, and to adapt it further at any time

It was at the cusp of the 1970s when premium Italian furniture manufacturer B&B Italia first launched its Camaleonda modular-sofa system, authored by architectural grandee Mario Bellini. Highly expressive in terms of form, with its friendly, rounded contours, its extreme easiness on the eye was part of a revolution in design for interior spaces – the optical comfort it projected functioning as a promise of soon-to-be experienced literal comfort upon the user taking a seat. Or lying down. The invitation couldn’t be more emphatic. Kick off your shoes and lounge. Or go fully supine. You do you.

Mario Bellini: ‘The way Camaleonda was intended is as good today as it was then. But change the materials? Absolutely. We’ve transformed a piece of furniture into a truly sustainable product.’

I say user, but, really, I mean users. The micro-architectural landscape that Camaleonda creates through its various configurable elements calls for a configuration of bodies, too. If design reflects who we are and what we do, it can also, simultaneously inform, and, indeed, drive, our behaviour. In the case of Bellini’s seating programme, its expansiveness encourages a social coming-together. Which is not to say Camaleonda can’t be deployed in smaller spaces, given its modularity. Join just two of its modules together and you’re already on a roll.

If design reflects who we are and what we do, it can also, simultaneously inform, and, indeed, drive, our behaviour

And that’s the crux of Bellini’s concept. As Silvia Rebuli, B&B Italia’s global communication director, reminds me when I meet up with her at the brand’s Milan showroom during the recent Milan Design City event, ‘Camaleonda’ is a portmanteau of chameleon and wave. The latter refers to the design’s repeated curves, while the former, as Bellini himself puts it, ‘is the name of an extraordinary animal, which can adapt to the environment around it’. Co-creation is the name of the game here, with the user or users planning the system’s organisation, according to its spatial context and, of course, to their changing needs.

The internal structure of the seating has been changed to a sandwich of recycled and recyclable materials, which can be easily separated once the seating reaches the end of its lifespan

‘Bellini wanted to liberate people from the authority of the interior architect or designer,’ explains Rebuli, ‘who would prescribe how they lived at home. So he created something modular, playful, and easy to modify.’ Such modification is possible thanks to the innovative and distinctive series of cables, hooks and rings that were integral to Bellini’s original design and remain unchanged. Unchanged, too, is the generous polyurethane padding, as well as the dimensions of the seat element – 90cm x 90cm. Indeed, the original cutting pattern was used for the re-edition.

Camaleonda's internal construction features small, repeated voids, which create the effect of a spring system. On the outside, the original hook-and-eye connection system remains

And yet…

A lot has changed on the inside. B&B Italia’s in-house R&D team worked closely with the architect to make Camaleonda an ambassador for an environmentally minded 21st century, rather than a nostalgia-driven, retro tribute act. ‘Alter the shape?,’ asks Bellini rhetorically. ‘No. The way it was intended is as good today as it was then. But change the materials? Absolutely. We’ve transformed a piece of furniture into a truly sustainable product.’

The internal structure of the seating now consists of a complex sandwich of recycled and recyclable materials that can, nevertheless, be easily separated once the seating reaches the end of its life. The various layers have been organised in a such a way as to provide optimal interaction, while, at the same time, creating small voids – which, in turn, creates an effect akin to a spring system.

‘Bellini wanted to liberate people from the authority of the interior architect or designer,’ explains Silvia Rebuli, B&B Italia's global communication director. 'So he created something modular, playful, and easy to modify.’

The complete padding volume is, in turn, housed within a skin made of Dacron, or recycled PET, over which sits the sofa cover, specified from B&B Italia’s extensive range of ultra-haptic textile and leather options.

Half a century old and beautiful both inside and out? I’ll have what you’re having, dear friend.