Take a Seat in Brazilian-Designed Chairs With Names Inspired by Women
During NeoCon, one of the largest commercial design shows in the world, thousands of attendees crammed into Chicago’s Merchandise Mart elevators to get to floors featuring the latest in office furniture, décor and technology.
To sooth frayed nerves after queuing up in long lines for the elevators, the visitor could rise several more floors to find some tranquility – literally.
Sossego--Portuguese for calm or tranquil--is also the name of a design firm that sells modern furniture and fixtures by Brazilian designers Artiseu Pires, Guilherme Wentz and Domingos Tótora. The space, which opened at the Mart nearly three years ago, served as a “relaxation lounge” for NeoCon attendees.
There, attendees could drop into one of several Pitu Chaise Lounges, which according to the firm were “inspired by the comfort and ease of the ubiquitous Brazilian hammock.” Here, they were source of relaxation while perhaps imbibing in a caipirinaha, a Brazilian cocktail made with a distilled sugar cane spirit called cachaça, and listening to bossa nova performed by a group that included Pires on guitar.
While roaming the Sossego space, visitors also could meet Angela, Gisele, Laura, Julieta or other chairs bearing the names of women that inspired Pires. Some of the names are his daughter’s. Gisele, however, is nod toward Gisele Bündchen, the Brazilian model married to New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady.
Then there’s Liz. A bit of mystery surrounds the inspiration for that one. “The chair stacks eight high,” Pires said with a wry smile that carried an unseen wink in his comment. The late movie star Liz Taylor was married to eight different men.
In addition to seeing the chairs at the Mart, you can see Sossego’s Gisele Lounge chairs in Hudson River Trading’s New York City offices designed by Gensler, and the Gensler-designed The Collective Seattle, a members-only urban community. Atlanta-based architectural firm ASD|SKY outfitted Credit Karma’s San Leandro, California offices with the Julieta armchairs.
Patrons of Ruka Restobar, a Boston Peruvian-Japanese restaurant, can sit on Yoko stools inspired by Yoko Ono. In Brazil, Sharon Durling, a Sossego principal, said the firm’s chairs are in all locations of a “large global coffee retailer” based in the United States that she couldn’t divulge. It’s not a stretch of the imagination to guess the coffee chain.
While sitting in certain chairs, you could kick up your feet on Tótora-designed round ottomans. These are made of recycled cardboard pulp that’s mixed with soil and water and dried in the sun. Durling said they can’t be reproduced because of the process used in making them. “Each is custom made and different,” Durling said.
Wentz’s offering illuminates the space. He designed the Corda lamp which looks a bit like a tear drop or a drop of water. He said the idea was to make the cord, which is off to the side on many lamps, loop around the light globe and become a continuous cord to “give the feeling of gravity.”
The lighting represents the Brazilian designer’s desire to make products that are more organic and fluid and serves as a “way of narrowing the gap between the indoors and outdoors.”
All these fancy furnishings come at a price, of course. The chairs can range from $800 to more than $2,000. The Corda Lamp is $1,330. The Gisele Lounge chair runs $2,300 to $3,000. The Totora ottoman costs $2,660.
