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100+10 Years of True Evolution
2012
Poltrona Frau Museum
Opening of the Flagship Store
in Beijing
GranTorino Wins the Wallpaper*
Design Awards
Archiboiled
Leathership®
“The intelligence of the hands”
in the Photographs of Sun Jun
Haworth, Inc., Majority Partner
Juliet wins the Elle Decor Design
Awards, Japan Edition
2014
2013
The company museum, based on a design
by Michele De Lucchi, is inaugurated inside the
production plant in Tolentino. A private institu-
tion, open to the public, aimed at safeguarding,
preserving, communicating and enhancing the
company’s stories and history. The Poltrona Frau
Museum is a contribution to the creation of a
collective historical memory of Italian design and
craftsmanship.
Poltrona Frau opens a 350 sqm showroom
in Beijing, inside the North Easy Home Furniture
Mall, the most renowned furniture store in China,
featuring four fl oors dedicated to the major
brands of high-end international design. This was
followed by a second showroom in Beijing - a
400 sqm store on Design Street, a street in the
north of the city dedicated to design and high-end
furniture. The showrooms are followed closely by
stores in Wenzhou, Qingdao and Xiamen Xian, in
addition to fl agship stores in Shanghai and Seoul
and monobrand stores in Shenyang, Guangzhou
and Chengdu. Since 2018, Poltrona Frau has had
a widespread presence in 35 of the top fi rst-and
second-tier Asian cities, including Hong Kong,
Shenzhen, Phnom Penh in Cambodia, Ho Chi
Minh City in Vietnam, Tokyo and Osaka.
The modular sofa designed by Jean-Marie
Massaud wins in the “Best Room Mater” category.
The design is inspired by the world of saddlery,
made of handcrafted luxury and skilled workman-
ship. The saddle-leather, cut and shaped by hand,
follows and enhances the lines and geometries of
the seat, giving it a distinctive character, while the
volumes are compact but lightened by the struc-
ture, which is raised off the ground. The design of
GranTorino refl ects the delicate balance between
the structural saddle-leather “case” and the fi nely
calibrated padding of the sofa.
London-based designer, artist and craftsman
Simon Hasan creates a special version of the
iconic Archibald armchair originally designed by
Jean-Marie Massaud. The piece is presented by
Harrods in London and at the Wallpaper* Hand-
made exhibition in New York. Archiboiled is charac-
terised by a special saddle-leather upholstery that
draws the famous profi le of the chair with the lapel
armrests, but which has the appearance of being
“boiled” and resting on the structure.
Poltrona Frau coins the neologism, which
becomes a registered trademark, to indicate
the specifi c expertise and culture in the world of
leather that the company has developed for over a
century. Today, Leathership® is a modus operandi
that is being transferred from leather, the material
of choice, to other materials such as fabric, wood,
metals, glass, stone and marble that make up the
rich catalogue of Poltrona Frau.
Famous Chinese photographer Sun Jun
interprets “The intelligence of the hands” in a
performance at the Poltrona Frau Flagship Store
in Shanghai. An encounter between diff erent cre-
ative expressions in the applied arts. The Shanghai
space in the Jing’An District is over 370 sqm and
is particularly strategic in the promotion and dis-
semination of new products in China, which today
is the brand’s leading export market.
Charme Capital Partners sells the majority of
shares in the Poltrona Frau brand, managed by the
Haworth Italy Holding branch, to the American
group Haworth Inc., a world leader in the offi ce
furniture market and already a distribution partner
in the North American market.
The armchair, designed by British designer
Benjamin Hubert, is rewarded with the Elle Decor
Design Award, Japan Edition, in the “Best in
Seating”. Characterised by an innovative pleated
stitching design on the inside of the seat and back,
the seat off ers a modern reinterpretation of an old
artisan technique.
2012
— 2022
