10.09.20

2020/21 News: Materic table by Piero Lissoni - interview

As one of the most authoritative and influential brands on the design scene, 95 years after its foundation Porro comes back inspiring once again with its special vision of the world. The continuous research on shapes, materials and technologies, conducted side by side with its Art Director, Piero Lissoni, results in the new evolutions of modular systems that increasingly become a true architecture of living. 
On the other hand, Porro enriches the brand’s collections with new classic designs and future iconic products, as the new version of Materic table with stainless steel base: plain, rigorous design and a continuous experimentation on lines and finishes lead to a piece that is at the crossroads of art, decoration and design.

“This year I am celebrating 30 years of Porro, more precisely 31. I would rather define Porro as a piece of life. 
A project is never born from a person’s mind, but it is the result of a group of people working together. I have worked with Lorenzo Porro for a long time, and we often tell each other stories. 
One of the stories that came out some time ago was: can we draw a table that doesn’t have a precise position, no leader, mixing this kind of almost religious model of conviviality with a slightly more friendly way of sitting around this table? A round table, with the rotating tray that you always find on Chinese tables – but made with a little more craftsmanship”.

When you draw an object, you always start from a very precise idea. Each object is born with a material that will guide it. Materic, instead, is born with this freedom – I can use any material that comes to my mind. We have almost cleaned up the structure to allow the materials to prevail. Hence the name”.

Piero Lissoni, 2020

For the Porro’s 2020 Collection, Materic table designed in 2017 changes its face thanks to an upside-down assembly, where the black stained ash usually used for the base is now used for the top, a dark veined surface only interrupted by the central flush tray, and the conical base is expertly made in metal, stainless steel. The result has an extraordinary visual impact, between glamor, industrial and futurist. 

Piero Lissoni takes on a contemporary classic from the Porro catalog, , freely re-exploring its key concept, the meeting of 2 geometric shapes in different materials. A game of combinatorial possibilities that Materic seems capable of reproducing ad infinitum, revealing the evocative power of the materials, and the brand's ability to work them.