Past and present meet in the new London showroom of De Padova, at 161 Draycott Ave. During the London Design Festival 2019, the company presented Edizioni De Padova, the collection of reissues of great classics, a line taken forward since 1984 by the brand’s founder Maddalena De Padova.
The new items will be on view in the company’s space in Chelsea, on the first floor of a modern building on four levels reinterpreted by the British architect David Chipperfield: an area of 310 m2, a contemporary attic with minimal white walls and large full-height windows.
Anna Lamp by Paolo Tilche, showroom De Padova, London ©Tommaso Sartori
The context in urban style becomes the setting for the four latest reissues, including the Wingback armchair by the American designer Paul McCobb from 1956, featuring unadorned forms; the Anna lamp designed by Paolo Tilche in 1962, with its renowned conical form, a simple yet revolutionary object where the base offers passage for electrical wiring. A lamp that lights the surface on which it stands and the surrounding objects, though the designer liked to say: “to be honest all my lamps don’t shed much light; they are first of all simply objects.”
Carlo Table by Tono Morganti,
Among the historic pieces brought back to life by the intuition and passion of De Padova there are the Carlo table, developed in 1989 by the Milanese architect Tono Morganti, and the Connecticut table by Jens Risom: a work dating back to 1965, with a marble top on a wooden base, one of the thousands of projects created by Risom, the Danish-American architect who was a pioneer of Scandinavian design in the United States.
Cerine by Achille Castiglioni, showroom De Padova, London ©Tommaso Sartori
Among the other new developments to discover at the showroom, we can mention Etiquette, the bed designed by the duo (in life and work) GamFratesi, and the updated version of the Cirene, a chair whose simplicity bears the signature of the great master Achille Castiglioni.
