Skin

Overview

SKiN is a sofa by Jean Nouvel for Molteni&C, the result of many years of collaboration between the architect and the company. Its construction rests on a self-supporting hide leather cover with a special pattern, which the page calls a texture crossed by light and suspended in space. In a 2008 M Magazine interview Nouvel says SKiN is not a piece of furnishing but a structure in space, with perforations, cuts and incisions in the leather that let light pass and cast the shadow of seat and structure on the floor.

Construction

The datasheet lists a metal frame with polyurethane pads, feet in non-slip plastic, and a non-removable cover of vegetable-tanned hide leather dyed in sample colours. The leather finishes are white and black.

Specifications

• Representative sofa KD210: W 210 × D 96 × H 67 cm (the 67 is shown without a label)
• Other sofa: KD247, 247 cm wide
• Armchair KPL77: 77 × 77 cm with an 81 cm value beside the drawing
• Pouf KPF56: 56 × 56 cm with a 39 cm value beside the drawing

Leather that holds its form

The page explains the idea behind SKiN in one sentence: leather without body reshapes itself over time so that innovation and memory hold the same form. In the 2008 interview Nouvel says the SKiN pieces will be shaped by time and usage, with leather part of that process, and that the design started from the shape leather could be moulded into. He singles out the patina that time moulds, and says the difficulty was reaching the right degree of elasticity.

From the Quai Branly Museum

Nouvel says the idea for SKiN came from his Quai Branly Museum in Paris, most of whose interiors were designed by the Molteni Group. The museum has large walls equipped with communication systems that look like a snake winding around the architecture, and he describes the SKiN collection as inspired by shapes from another world, since the museum holds objects from the native civilisations of Africa, Oceania and the Americas.

Premiere and awards

According to the same M Magazine article, the SKiN seating system of sofa, armchair and pouf was presented in a worldwide premiere at Maison & Objet 2008, in an installation dedicated to Nouvel at the Molteni&C showroom in Rue des Saints Pères. Molteni&C lists three recognitions for the sofa: the Red Dot Award Best of the Best 2008, the ELLE DECOR Design Award 2008 and a place in the ADI Index 2008. Nouvel himself was awarded the Pritzker Prize in 2008, as the page and the magazine both note.