Vitra Marshmallow Sofa

Product detailed description

The unique "Marshmallow" sofa was designed in 1956 by George Nelson, a designer and the Director of Design at the American company Herman Miller. However, the true author of the design within Nelson's studio was the designer Irving Harper. Its playful and unusual appearance was ahead of its time. Although the sofa was created as early as the mid-1950s, it is today considered one of the very first manifestations of early Pop Art in furniture design. The name is derived from the round cushions, which resemble the popular candy in their shape. The original intention was to produce a very inexpensive sofa through the clever use of mass-produced cushions. However, due to the complex frame construction and time-consuming manual assembly, it instead became one of the most expensive pieces in the brand's catalog at the time.

This specific piece was manufactured in 2009 by the Swiss company Vitra, which holds the license for Nelson's designs for the European market. This is the rarer cream-colored version; the sofa is also widely known in a multicolored variant. It consists of two smaller sofas and connectors, which allow both pieces to be easily joined into one larger sofa. The frame is made of black lacquered tubular steel, upon which thirty-nine cushions upholstered in high-quality leather appear to visually levitate. The edges of the round cushions are decorated with piping, and the cushions themselves can be rotated. Despite its purely geometric design, the sofa is highly comfortable. It is in excellent original condition, with only one cushion showing a minor scratch, as can be seen in the photographs.