Customizable Zanotta Calla Chair by Noé Duchaufour Lawrance

Not wishing to simply produce or be rational about a product, Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance prefers that each of his projects has its own unique scenario, nourished without distinction between uses, forms, materials or aesthetics. For him, curves and straight lines, sensuality and strictness interact in confrontations that are conducive to create meaning and awaken our senses. Through his desire to breathe life into both the objects and spaces he designs, Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance views each project as an organic form that will grow over time with its user, almost like a natural element that can challenge human order or disorder.

Originally, Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance was a sculptor, preoccupied with each work he created by a story and intimate link with nature that he felt the need to retranscribe by using his hands. But soon the IDEA of stirring emotions in others by creating useful forms became an evident path for someone who loves the beautiful as much as the functional and harmony as much as social responsibility. So he turned to design.

Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance often compares his approach to tsubo niwa, the tiny garden at the center of a traditional Japanese house. Like an organic pulse in a profession dedicated to meeting the demands of an industry, a market or a specific client, he is as ready to design objects with inspired lines for manufacturers (Bernhardt Design, Ceccotti Collezioni, Cinna, Ligne Roset, La Chance, Petite Friture, Tacchini, Zanotta) as he is to imagine harmonious living areas (Senderens, Air France Lounges, Ciel de Paris, Meurice Oenotheque, Chalet La Transhumance, #Cloud Paris lounge) or even to define a product image or showcase for a famous brand (Paco Rabanne, YSL Beauty, Perrier-Jouët).

Thus in 2015 Montblanc associated its name with Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance, entrusting him with the architectural plans of the company’s 500 boutiques worldwide.

His unique approach has led him to conceive exceptional objects that have been presented in the Pierre Bergere Gallery in Brussels and the BSL gallery in Paris. He has participated in prestigious events like the AD Interiors exhibition at Musée des Arts Decoratifs in Paris in 2013 and more recently, the AD collections exhibition, also in Paris.

Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance’s creative meanderings have led him to initiate a collaboration with the Neal Feay workshop in the United States and also to work with two royal factories in France: Mobilier National (National Furniture) and the Manufacture Nationale de Sèvres (ceramics). The latter two endeavors combine his contemporary vision of design with the finely honed skills of master craftsmen that were used in the 18th century.

Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance’s approach has been acclaimed by the French and international press and he has received many prizes including NeoCon Silver 2016 for his Modern Family collection for Bernhardt Design, the 2015 Via Label, the 2014 Janus business prize for the Air France Salons, the GQ Best Designer prize in 2012, the prestigious Red Dot prize for Best Product in 2011 and both the Elle Decoration International Design Prize and Wallpaper* Design Award in 2009.

With his innate fondness for Art Nouveau, Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance relies not only on the universal character of nature to impose shapes that make sense but believes that the idea of a total, multidisciplinary art is vital for contemporary creation.

(Biography provided by Galerie Philia)

Entrepreneur Aurelio Zanotta founded Zanotta in 1954 in Nova Milanese, Italy. Originally called Zanotta Poltrona, it specialized in traditional furniture. By the early 1960s, however, Zanotta had established a reputation for edgy mid-century modern design. Today’s vintage furniture collectors know the brand well for its innovative and wholly sculptural chairs, coffee tables and more.

One of Zanotta’s earliest successes was the Mezzadro stool — better known as the Tractor stool — designed by Pier Giacomo Castiglioni and his brother Achille in the late 1950s. In 1965, Zanotta was among the first furniture companies to work with expanded polyurethane foam and frameless construction, such as for the Throw-Away sofas and armchairs designed by Willie Landels. Another popular design was the Blow chair — designed by Jonathan De Pas, Donato D’Urbino, Paolo Lomazzi and Carla Scolari — viewed by many as a physical expression of late '60s carefree culture.

In 1969, amid the provocative movement we now call Italian Radical Design, Zanotta’s Sacco chair garnered major attention. The boundary-pushing beanbag chair was the brainchild of designers Piero Gatti, Cesare Paolini and Franco Teodoro who presented it to Aurelio Zanotta as a transparent vinyl sack loosely filled with small polystyrene balls. He suggested its signature brightly colored leather.

The Sacco chair won the 1970 ADI Design Museum’s Compasso d’Oro award. In 1972, the Museum of Modern Art in New York included it in the landmark exhibition “Italy: The New Domestic Landscape” curated by designer Emilio Ambasz. In 2020, it received a Compasso d’Oro ADI Lifetime Achievement Award for 50 years of enduring popularity. It is now in museum collections around the world including the Triennale Design Museum of Milan, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, and London’s Victoria & Albert Museum.

After Aurelio Zanotta died in 1991, the company remained in his family and has been run by his three children since 2002. Zanotta continues to set the bar high for furniture design with trend-setting pieces.

On 1stDibs, find a collection of vintage Zanotta seating, tables and other furniture.