Molteni&C Makes a Splash With Debut Outdoor Furniture Collection

The Italian brand dives into outdoor furniture for the first time and it’s all about liminal space. “I was inspired by modernism to recall the permeability and transparency between indoors and out, and that intimate con­nection with light and nature,” Molteni&C creative director Vincent Van Duysen says of the collection, which en­com­passes vintage reissues alongside newer releases. From the early 1950’s are two pieces by Gio Ponti: a rigid poly­ure­thane rendition of his wraparound D.154.2 armchair that can be customized in myriad weatherproof polyester upholsteries, and his D.150.5 chaise longue, now produced in solid teak, its precise angles accurate to Ponti’s original drawings. Among the more recent is Arc Outdoor, a cement-finished version of the parabolic 2009 table by Foster + Partners, and the Palinfrasca armchair in supersized woven bands of teak or EVA polyurethane, an all-weather rein­vention of a 1994 Luca Meda design.