+ Inspiration
Celebrating
Legacy Italian luxury brands Poltrona Frau and Ferrari
use their history
of collaboration
to bring the auto
brand into the
workplace.
By Kadie Yale | Photography courtesy of Poltrona Frau
Since 1986, two names at the apex of Italian design have come together in what has been called “the perfect marriage”: Poltrona Frau and Ferrari. Sharing a similar vision of providing excellence, as well as
the research and refinement down to the finest detail, Ferrari
approached Poltrona Frau in the winter of 2016 with the idea of
creating an office chair for Ferrari’s 70th anniversary in 2017. The
team at Poltrona Frau was already confident it could create luxury
seating that would live up to the Ferrari legacy. The result? The
Cockpit executive office chair.
“Every single detail has been designed anew in order to have
something that is absolutely original in the marketplace,” said
Nicola Coropulis, brand director at Poltrona Frau. “There are many
office chairs that have the inspiration or roots in the automobile
world, in the car environment, but this is the first and only that has
been conceived by working together on an original project.”
“There were many inspirations to the design,” he continued.
“For example, if you look at the base of the armchair, it is a five-
spoke base. This base actually replicates the internal part of the
wheels of a Ferrari sports car. The main inspiration [was trying] to
blend two things that are really unique.”
Designed with the Ferrari-loving businessperson in mind,
Poltrona Frau wanted the final product to make the user feel as if
they are in the driver’s seat from the comfort of the office. Every
feature had to be perfectly crafted, including using the same
fiberglass interior shell that is integrated into car seating. “The real
beauty is when you don’t understand the complexity behind it,”
Coropulis noted.
ABOVE For Ferrari’s 70th anniversary,
the company went to frequent
collaborator Poltrona Frau to design
an office chair that brought the
luxury and aesthetic of the brand
indoors. “We were told when we
started working on the first prototypes that there are lots of Ferrari
fans and collectors who purchase
the car seat of real Ferraris and
they actually put them on wheels or
bases,” explained Nicola Coropulis,
brand director at Poltrona Frau. “So
the idea was to provide this large
group of Ferrari collectors with
official luxury seating.”
