Edra designer Francesco Binfaré on radical design values today

In the 1960s and 70s in post-war Italy, the Radical Design movement suggested that architecture and design must have a critical social and political voice in culture and space. Exploring ideas of urban utopias, pushing social taboos around gender and rebelling against consumer culture, design had a responsibility to speak. So what about today? Has design become too ‘quiet’, too willing to assimilate and uneasy to offend?

Design as art

Francesco Binfaré, lead designer at Italian seating specialist Edra, who won the prestigious Compasso d'Oro alla Carriera this year, suggests that perhaps it’s up to designers to challenge and educate their clients to patronise design that represents our era – just like the Radical Design movement did. 'Design is the most contemporary form of art. You shall look at it, it shall represent you, it serves as an inspiration to you,' he says.

Milan born and based Binfaré brought this approach to his career in industrial design, working for Cassina from 1960 in product research and development, and then joining Edra in 1992, invited by then art director Massimo Morozzi, a former member of Archizoom. Edra had been founded in Tuscany in 1987, focusing on the manufacture of sofas and armchairs, and Binfaré became a creative innovator and over-30-year collaborator for the brand.

The power to dream

Under Binfaré, some of Edra’s most iconic products have been launched – those that combine bold ideas, commentary on contemporary society and expert manufacture and technical strength. Take the Flap sofa, a form that reflects space travel with its aerodynamic flying saucer shape with flexible dynamic components that adapt to support the body so it feels weightless. Or the Pack sofa, which embraces the animalistic and playful nature of humans with its organic polar-bear-shaped, ecological fur seat rest that completely disrupts the traditional linear form of a sofa and suggests totally new ways of use.

'The sofa has the power to define an environment, it has the ability to act as a protagonist. More than an ability, it is the nature of a sofa, because it is the pivot of a function, namely that of being together, of being there, and that’s it,' he says.

Idea meets technique

It is Binfaré’s opinion that a good concept always starts with a bold pitch: 'You have to have an idea, and you have to be able to communicate it, you have to involve and understand others. So, the exchange of energy is relevant,' he says. When choosing a sofa, the ultimate goal is persuading clients to go beyond comfort and softness to discover the 'sense, the meaning, the adventure' of a product in space.

When Binfaré speaks of his products he describes angels, demons, polar bears, black rain in a red desert – yet Edra’s manufacturing expertise brings these ideas into reality with high quality materials, technological research and decades of manual expertise. For example, the On The Rocks sofa – designed after watching people lying on rocks by the coast – is made with Edra’s Gellyfoam, a specially developed material that moulds to the body, keeping it supported in any position. Or, the Standalto, which features Edra’s ‘intelligent cushions’ that can be adjusted to the body with a small amount of pressure so the sofa can be customised to each user in the moment.