Studio 65 Furniture
Every so often a company produces a design so iconic that it comes to symbolize its entire history. For Studio 65, the Italian avant-garde design collective cofounded by Franco Audrito, Piero Gatti and others, this was the Bocca sofa — alternatively known as the “lips sofa,” “red lip sofa,” “Dalí sofa” or Marilyn sofa.”
Studio 65’s lip-shaped seat — modeled after a singular feature from Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí’s portrait of Mae West — became a design icon shortly after its release in 1970 and remains a beloved collector’s item today. The Bocca symbolizes Studio 65’s playful, subversive approach to design. The collective took shape in Turin in 1965 with the goal of avant-garde experimentation. The group would eventually grow to comprise artists, designers and poets, including Roberta Garosci, Enzo Bertone, Paolo Morello and Paolo Rondelli. It would also play a central role in the Italian Radical design movement, the practitioners of which found inspiration in Pop art, minimalism and Arte Povera.
The Bocca sofa was born of one of Audrito’s earliest commissions — to design a gym in Milan — which he accepted just a year after graduating from architecture school. The collective enlisted Italian manufacturer Gufram, a firm at the forefront of Italian Radical design, to create a bold red sofa in the shape of plump lips; it was dubbed Marilyn after Ms. Monroe and was an instant sensation when installed at the fitness center.
Studio 65 would follow this with the also iconic Capitello side chair (another Gufram collaboration, now in the permanent collection at The Met), whose reimagining of a decapitated marble classical architectural column in squishy foam was an on-the-nose expression of the group’s pushback to traditional design. It’s a nod they iterated with the Attica coffee table, whose form appears sliced from an oversize column.
Though Studio 65 still operates as an architecture studio under the leadership of Audrito today, the original collective broke up in the late 1970s, making its output from the past decade sought-after fodder for collectors of postmodern, Radical and Italian design.
Find Studio 65 chairs, sofas and other furniture on 1stDibs.
21st Century and Contemporary Italian Modern Studio 65 Furniture
Foam
21st Century and Contemporary Italian Modern Studio 65 Furniture
Other
21st Century and Contemporary Italian Modern Studio 65 Furniture
Wool
21st Century and Contemporary Italian Modern Studio 65 Furniture
Other
21st Century and Contemporary Italian Modern Studio 65 Furniture
Foam
21st Century and Contemporary Italian Modern Studio 65 Furniture
Wool
21st Century and Contemporary Italian Modern Studio 65 Furniture
Other
21st Century and Contemporary Italian Modern Studio 65 Furniture
Other
21st Century and Contemporary Italian Modern Studio 65 Furniture
Other
21st Century and Contemporary Italian Modern Studio 65 Furniture
Textile
1970s Italian Post-Modern Vintage Studio 65 Furniture
Fabric, Foam
Early 20th Century French French Provincial Studio 65 Furniture
Oak
1990s Italian Post-Modern Studio 65 Furniture
Laminate, Wood
Early 19th Century English Georgian Antique Studio 65 Furniture
Mahogany
Late 19th Century French Art Nouveau Antique Studio 65 Furniture
Mercury Glass, Pine
21st Century and Contemporary Italian Modern Studio 65 Furniture
Fabric, Upholstery
Late 18th Century English Hepplewhite Antique Studio 65 Furniture
Mahogany
Late 20th Century Italian Studio 65 Furniture
Plastic
Early 19th Century Italian Directoire Antique Studio 65 Furniture
Ebony, Fruitwood, Walnut, Pine
20th Century Italian Studio 65 Furniture
Marble, Silver
20th Century Studio 65 Furniture
Wood
21st Century and Contemporary Italian Studio 65 Furniture
Foam
