Sitting pretty: a chair becomes a work of art

When Giulio Galasso and Natalia Voroshilova moved into a new home in Zurich, they decided to design the furniture themselves. The founders of architectural practice Continentale are known for buildings that make playful use of colour and geometry. “Being our own clients gave us the freedom to develop the language of our architecture into the realm of objects,” Galasso says. It is this language – of colour, geometry and playfulness – that has found full expression in Polychrome Revival, a joyful collection of limited-edition furniture pieces, handcrafted in Milan using wood, water-based paint and, in the case of the Cornetta chair, glossy foam padding.

For inspiration, the pair had turned to late medieval and early Renaissance art. “We were fascinated by the surreal, vivid worlds these works depict,” Galasso says. “Mystical spaces rendered in vibrant, contrasting colours.” They imagined the collection as a troupe of “domestic characters built from a shared grammar of shapes, colours and details, so they read as a flock of the same species.” Together they form a small mise-en-scène, although each piece stands alone, too. “We see them as friendly companions that animate the home,” Galasso says, with a smile.