Formafantasma: Formation by Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin
Formafantasma’ Formation is a collaboration with New York-based design gallery Friedman Benda. This collection of furniture and lighting—comprising a table, a desk, an armchair, and several lighting objects—embodies a restrained formal language, exploring the material dialogue between cherry wood and aluminum. It resists extravagance not as a rejection but as a conscious stance: an assertion that design, beyond self-expression, must be reflective and attuned to its time: Formation seeks to transcend the ephemeral in favor of an enduring presence.
This pursuit is subtly informed by Formafantasma’s reverence for the Shaker community, Frank Lloyd Wright, and George Nakashima— makers and designers who shaped their own aesthetic and philosophical foundations. The Shakers’ approach to utility and transcendence is mirrored in the collection’s essential forms and its use of cherry wood, a material deeply embedded in American cabinetmaking. Wright’s synthesis of craft and technology, and Nakashima’s reverence for timber as a living entity, find echoes in the collection’s interplay of warm wood and brushed aluminum—a material more often associated with contemporary digital devices.
Emerging from a dialogue with Friedman Benda, Formation explores the role of archetypes in the domestic sphere. Each piece originates from the most elementary unit of cabinetmaking—the plank—transforming this seemingly banal element into objects that feel both rooted in tradition and undeniably contemporary. The lighting objects, for example, integrate rectangular LED panels, their proportions recalling the ubiquitous screens of mobile devices and portable laptops. These juxtapositions serve as an inquiry into the evolving nature of domestic artifacts: how the familiar is constantly reshaped by shifting technologies and cultural paradigms. The collection invites us to reconsider the way we engage with objects, allowing the past and present to converge in forms that neither mimic nor reject history but instead expand upon it.
A further layer of meaning is introduced through the use of textiles. A tablecloth draped over a dining table, a linen shade on a floor lamp, and a chandelier incorporating fabric all reference domestic traditions that have often been overlooked in the canon of design history. These subtle textile embellishments recall the quiet craftsmanship historically associated with women’s labor—embroidered linens, draped fabrics—gestures that equally mundane to the poetic. In these details, Formation asks us to consider what is valued and remembered, what is given prominence and what is quietly woven into the fabric of daily life. The presence of textiles within the collection serves as a reminder that domesticity is not simply a functional backdrop, but a space layered with memory, care, and subtle interventions that shape our experience of home.
With its restrained aesthetic, Formation creates a domestic space that is not dictated by spectacle but by quiet reflection. It stands as a counterpoint to the expressive tendencies often celebrated in contemporary design, instead advocating for an approach where objects facilitate thought and experience rather than declare identity. By weaving together influences from past and present, from archetypal forms to contemporary materials, Formafantasma pays homage to those who have shaped their design sensibilities while asserting a language that is distinctly their own. Formation is, in essence, a meditation on permanence, quietude, and the evolving nature of the everyday. It is an homage to those who came before, whose insights continue to resonate, shaping not only Formafantasma’s work but the broader landscape of design itself.
by Alessandro Rabottini
“We should set aside a room, just for ourselves, at the back of the shop, keeping it entirely free and establishing there our true liberty, our principal solitude and asylum. Within it our normal conversation should be of ourselves, with ourselves, so privy that no commerce or communication with the outside world should find a place there; there we should talk as if we had no wife, no children, no possessions, no followers, no menservants, so that when the occasion arises that we must lose them it should not be a new experience to do without them.”
Michel de Montaigne, On Solitude1
The need for a room, isolated from its surroundings, far from the others. This is an image onto which, for centuries and beyond, numerous narratives have converged, yet ones all revolving around a single desire: to express an inner dimension that might be deemed authentic. At various latitudes and throughout history, from time to time, this quest has taken the contours of an effort and a sense of relief, a pursuit of a poetical or philosophical nature, a spiritual or existential vocation, if not all these things in one. What all these experiences share is the correspondence they establish—a structural and necessary one—between the self-sufficient completeness of this room and the rigor of the path leading toward a self perceived as more genuine. That for retreat from the world is a burning desire, one with such long history to it that if we were to try and retrace it all, our heads would spin, so far does it reach back into a core that is deeply human. Here isolation is seen as essential, a chance for redemption and an opportunity for truth.
Some of these “rooms of integrity”—rooms that have been specifically designed with the search for integrity in mind—have been handed down to us in all their tactility, as genuine living perimeters and not just as metaphors, from the cells of Carthusian monks to the cabin that Ludwig Wittgenstein had built for him on a Norwegian fjord 2 —which was as much a wooden construction as it was one in of thought—right up to Virginia Woolf’s “room of one’s own” 3 a few miles south of Lewes, in England: a creation as habitational as it was literary. Albeit in the rigor imposed by limited space, and often in keeping with an imperative aesthetic of reduction, these are furnished rooms. Ones in which we find tables, chairs, and sources of light. Here the hardness of the seat issues from the aspiration for an upright posture, one initially of the body before then being interiorized; where the meager size of the desk is functional to the gathering of thoughts, propaedeutic to the need not to disperse one’s reflections, even in spatial terms. They are rooms that prove that the furnishings are, at the same time, embodiments of a philosophy and vehicles of ethics, the product of a notion about how to exist within the world and the means by which to do so according to that notion. Should we think of these furnishings as archetypes, we may witness a circular phenomenon of cause and effect, a dynamic of reciprocity: indeed, they are as much the manifestation of a particular idea about how to inhabit the real world as they are the opportunity to experience and express that same aspiration. And in this sense, the words of Andrea Branzi come to mind, when he writes: “Designing a new object also means trying to make a cognitive capability emerge from within people, one buried beneath the complexity of languages and information; like a young child learning a new alphabet.”4
Around an aesthetic of thought-gathering and contemplation, Formation takes shape: a collection in which, right from the title, Formafantasma evoke the image of an edifying process, the notion of an educational and enhancing path, such as the gradual structuring of the self through ever deeper familiarity with a particular form of knowledge. For example, there is a desk which rather than conjuring up images of the digital multitasking demanded of working from home, appears to have been conceived for a more exclusive form of attention, for prolonged dedication to a solitary activity, be it the honing of a new skill or indulgence in one’s own recollections. And a table lamp, solid and austere, as satisfyingly unrelenting as the dedicated commitment to a discipline.
Michel de Montaigne, On Solitude, Penguin Books, 2009, London, p. 7.
After an initial sojourn in 1913 in Skjolden, the most inland settlement of Lustrafjord, Ludwig Wittgenstein chose this remote place as his ideal retreat, and asked a local builder to erect a cabin complete with a small living room, a kitchen, and a bedroom. It was here that the Austrian philosopher, between 1936 and 1937, composed his Philosophical Investigations Taken down following Wittgenstein’s death in 1950, the house was faithfully reconstructed in 2019 in its original position and with the use of some of the original materials.
3 Published in 1929, the essay A Room of One’s Own is an exploration of the female condition in the field of literature and on the need to obtain social and economic independence for the purposes of creativity. Over time, the title has come to designate the place that Virginia Woolf’s work occupies in the collective cultural imagination in broader terms, finding a correspondence with the writer’s affection for the so-called Monk’s House, a sixteenth-century cottage in East Sussex, which Woolf purchased together with her husband in 1919. Modest in size and initially unfurnished, the house was where the writer penned several of her greatest masterpieces.
4 Andrea Branzi, Introduzione al design italiano. Una modernità incompleta Baldini Castoldi Dalai, Milan, 2008, p. 177. (Translator’s translation)
According to a compositional grammar of planes articulated in space, Formation makes prudent use of a limited economy of shapes and materials. Cherry wood, brushed aluminum and fabric are the sole elements used in what looks like a somber meditation on the practices of cabinetmaking, a carefully gauged tribute to artisanal skills now hard to come by. Of this manual skill, Formafantasma distil the most fundamental unit, i.e. the wooden plank, and highlight its essence: they emphasize this elementary constructive feature, going back to its original compositional value, as if attempting to trace the etymology of a language. Some of these axial forms host sources of LED light which, in their uniform proportions and flatness, draw on the familiarity of the screen of an iPad or a smartphone, thereby strengthening a narrative that seems to drive this collection toward the individual and silent dimension of reading and consultation. Proof of this may be found in a suspended lamp in which the various levels join from one to the next in an orderly fashion, like the harmoniously opening doors of a dresser or the pages of a glowing digital book. An architecture of knowledge unfolding on a domestic scale.
Formation is a collection immersed in a somewhat absorbed atmosphere, in a sentiment of calm rigor, and even those furnishings that foresee the potential presence of more than one person—such as the long table and the hanging lamp that goes with it—hint at the image of methodical conviviality, a moment of preordained sociality, such as a gathering for a prayer or for a task to be performed.
Just like in the case of the collection La casa dentro ( The Home Within, 2024), Formation also seems to be driven by the desire to explore the emotional and narrative potential of home furnishings, their being the guardian and at the same time the trigger of one’s inner life. Indeed, in the case of La casa dentro Formafantasma thematized the living room as a theater of memory, like the stage of a conflict as sentimental as it is formal, as personal as it is historical: in other words, the conflict between the orthodoxy of Modernism and the tenderness of decoration, between an assertive language that reduces and eliminates and a desire that welcomes and adds. Formation shifts the focus from the living room to another space in this ideal and narrated home, to another part of this speculative habitat: one which might be configured as a studio, that space of retreat and separation, of reflection and production—one of industrious solitude.
While La casa dentro explored the dimension of loss and mourning through the corrosive aesthetic of the collage, of the striking friction between things Modernism would have kept separate—such as embroidery and bent tubular metal— Formation lies in a different visual dominion, that of compositional rigor and the parsimonious use of materials, to evoke an entirely different emotional temperature, which is that of the absorption of a historic lesson, one that goes beyond the individual and autobiographical dimension.
Indeed, the notes that accompany this collection list various sources of inspiration for it: the functional serenity and skilled craftsmanship we find in the furnishings of the Shakers community; the playful interaction of planes and proportions that Frank Lloyd Wright brought from his architecture to the scale of objects (think especially of the furnishings conceived for his Taliesin home-studio); the passionate collaboration between nature and design that characterizes the work of George Nakashima. These sources do not appear to be an object of citation, nor are they displayed as extracted visual fragments, but rather as lessons sedimented, filtered over a personal process of “formation” within the discipline of design. They are sources treated as the subject matter of a productive meditation that locates the past at the very core of Formafantasma’s multimedia and critical practice, leading to their continuous questioning of the role and responsibilities of designers today.
There is a linear essentiality in Formation an honesty that we find not only in the materials but also in the mechanisms and the joins through which they dialogue with one another, a pristine functionality bereft of clamor. All this reaches us like the echo of a conversation that Formafantasma have been holding with the history of design ever since their foundation—a history which in their view contemplates Modernism just as much as the vernacular, doctrine just as much as heresy.
Think, for example, of how the notion of self-sufficiency embedded in the life of the Shaker community 5 was already present—albeit with a different historical and anthropological acceptation—in Autarchy (2010), one of the very first projects by Formafantasma. Flour, agricultural waste, and limestone were the common substances which, once blended together and dried, formed the recipients of this collection, which experimented with materials while putting forward a speculative scenario. As may be evinced from the title, Autarchy concerned the everyday aspect of materials and a form of ancient manual know-how in order to imagine the autonomous existence of a community that comes together to sever bonds of dependency on the outside world, a hypothetical society which, in the words of the authors, “embraces a serene and self-imposed embargo,” the economy of which is the upshot of the intersection between nature, tools, and human needs.
In this sense, Formation is situated along a research line followed by the Formafantasma studio which may be interpreted as a sort of lyrical counterpoint to the multidisciplinary research underpinning the institutional exhibitions Cambio and Oltre Terra 6 Indeed, these two shows took on a global scale and a documentary methodology with a specific and ambitious mission in mind: to question the practice of design in terms of the extraction, processing, and circulation of wood and wool respectively, so as to unveil the environmental, social, political and economic implications in which the designing of objects is very much bound up. They were exhibitions that looked well beyond the dimension of objects and the idea that the role of designers is simply to come up with new ones. On the contrary, the exhibitions questioned the very premises of those same objects. In an almost complementary fashion, collections like La casa dentro and Formation lead objects and furnishings back not only to the intimacy of the domestic space but also to the function referred to by Branzi, that of digging up a “cognitive capacity buried beneath the complexity of languages and information.” While Cambio and Oltre Terra feature a critical analysis of the environmental and social costs of the production of objects, La casa dentro and Formation reattach to objects something that is never entirely lost even when it appears to be far away, i.e. their capacity to retain their sentimental potential and to trigger a narrative, imaginative process.
There is one last element that seals the secluded atmosphere of Formation, and that is the presence of fabric. It is a white fabric, as simple as a sheet or a tablecloth, worked around the edges in an almost imperceptible manner, with what is known as “a-jour” edging: a decorative technique, made precious by virtue of its absolute simplicity. We find it placed on a range of light sources, as if to soften them, to lessen their harsh presence. In its ductility, it is a fabric often hung on windows, especially in Italy, to shade the domestic sphere from prying eyes. It is extremely resistant and may well survive the passing generations, to the point that it is often handed down as an heirloom or a form of knowledge. Along with crockery, of all the domestic elements, fabrics are perhaps the ones we establish the most familiar relationship with, even a physical one: we touch them, and they envelop us, absorbing our bodily humors. While Formation pieces together a visual universe of long-lastingness and stability, a room of permanence, fabric brings another presence into this environment, one no less familiar and necessary, which is that of vulnerability and care.
Deep Cut by Glenn
Adamson
Design can be a blunt instrument. The world is teeming with humanmade objects, variously made in a spirit of problem-solving, profit-making, or individual expression. Very rarely do these things have the thoughtfulness that they could, if their creators had considered every aspect of their formation. Formafantasma aim to do better. The Italian design studio, founded by Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin in 2009, have gradually scaled the discipline’s heights, and now stand at its uppermost echelon. They have always been notable for their refinement of touch. Whatever the project – alchemical objets d’art, sprawling investigative projects, products for serial manufacture, immersive exhibition designs – they employ extensive research and intensive craftsmanship, penetrating to the very heart of the task at hand.
Typically, this holistic methodology remains in the background of Formafantasma’s work. They are highly adept at directing focus, and typically they have something important to communicate, most often a narrative about ecology, our surpassingly beautiful and tragically endangered environment. But in Formation, their first solo exhibition at Friedman Benda – in fact, their first in any American gallery – they have chosen to put their design thinking front and center. The title, a subtle riff on the studio’s own name, conveys a sense of self-portraiture, or at least a statement of purpose. (A further possible allusion to Beyoncé’s 2016 mega-track is probably unintentional, but nonetheless appropriate; in contemporary design, no one slays like Formafantasma.)
As one would expect, yet in a totally surprising way, the exhibition is a masterclass. One’s first impression is of absolute, confident control. The studio has developed a minimalist vocabulary of forms, and executed them in a restricted palette of timber, metal, and linen. This is a striking departure from previous design collections they have made: the homebrewed organic polymers of Botanica (2010); the sculpted geological forms of Da Natura Fossilium (2014); Ore Streams, a project for the 2017 NGV Trienniale quarried from office furniture, deadstock computer cases, and e-waste; and the “intellectual self-pollination” that they explored in Archivio Massimo (2023). Instead of these richly layered, self-evidently experimental effects, here they give us absolute clarity, each diagonal, horizontal and vertical as decisive as a blow from a perfectly honed axe.
The plank serves as the unifying module for the collection, with the choice of cherry wood, common in early American regional furniture, a nod to the local context. While developing Formation Formafantasma was designing an exhibition about the Shakers (opening concurrently at the Vitra Design Museum), whose famously serene and satisfying furniture seems reborn here. There is a knowing quotation of Frank Lloyd Wright’s angular Taliesin 1 chair, from 1949, and Trimarchi and Farresin have also mentioned the soulful furniture of George Nakashima as an inspiration. In the case of the impressively scaled floor lamp, it is hard not to think of George Cawardine’s iconic Anglepoise lamp (designed in 1931) and its many imitators, including Gaetano Pesce’s scaled-up Pop version, Moloch developed for Bracciodiferro in 1970-1.
5 “Shaker communities were largely self-sufficient: in their attempt to separate themselves from the outside world and to create a heaven-on-earth, members grew their own food, constructed their own buildings, and manufactured their own tools and household furnishings. Believers abided by a strict set of rules governing their behavior, dress, and domestic environment. These rules were codified in the Millennial Laws of 1821, which was revised and greatly expanded in 1845,” Nicholas C. Vincent, “Shaker Furniture” in Timeline of Art History March 1, 2012. (https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/shaker-furniture), accessed May 14, 2025.
6 Cambio was commissioned by the Serpentine Galleries in London, and it took place at the North Gallery from March 4 to March 23, 2020 and from September 29 to November 15, 2020. It later travelled to the Centro Pecci in Prato from May 15 to October 24, 2021. Oltre Terra was commissioned by the National Museum of Oslo, where it was on view from May 26 to October 1, 2023. The exhibition travelled to the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam from February 15 to July 13, 2025.
For those who know their design history, these deep cuts are another indication of Formafantasma’s surpassing sophistication. (When I suggested to Farresin that this new body of work was a response to modernism, he replied, “yes. It is almost painful how deep that is within us.”) What is most compelling, however, is the proposition that they are making about present-day practice. We’re cued to contemporary context by the glowing, screen-like panels that populate the collection, and the inclusion of elements in brushed aluminum, which bear more than a passing resemblance to the Mac laptop (equally exquisitely detailed) on which I’m typing these words. The spare infrastructure of the pieces acknowledges the wave of dematerialization that is currently reshaping, some would say impoverishing, our environment. At the same time, the collection is anchored in domesticity, both in its familiar typologies – lighting, desk and chair, table – and the textiles that drape neatly over the rectilinear forms, abstracted renderings of the traditional tablecloth.
This latter gesture toward the comforts of home, slight as it may be, positions Formation as a successor to Formafantasma’s last solo exhibition, La Casa Dentro held at the ICA Milano in 2024. That project was partly a programmatic intervention – a queering of the modernist canon – but also a deeply personal statement, incorporating motifs from Trimarchi and Farresin’s childhood homes. The sentimentality of that project, with its delicate upholstery, floral patterns and ornamental inlay, is nowhere to be seen in Formation, with its rigorous planarity. But the desire to reimagine fundamental archetypes, operating on them from the inside, is the same.
This core intention, ultimately, is what lends the exhibition its intensity. Formafantasma are always exquisitely attuned to the environments in which their work is presented, and Friedman Benda is no exception. It is one of the few galleries that define the course of the design avant garde. To show here for the first time, at this advanced point in their career – there’s no way around it – is something like a manifesto. In response to this challenge, Farresin says, “We felt an urgency to do less, to be less outspoken with our authorship.” If Formation looks restrained in comparison to the studio’s own earlier work, it is positively severe in relation to the sculptural, expressive objects that are often shown at Friedman Benda and its peer galleries. Individualism, too, can become formulaic; and without wishing necessarily to critique other designers, Trimarchi and Farresin wanted to carve another pathway, to show how expansive precision can be.
Doing more with less, of course, is one conventional definition of good design. What makes Formation such a unique achievement, though, is the sheer excitement they have generated from their self-imposed exactitude. The exhibition is a system of objects, articulated by vectors that ricochet around the space. The proportions of the pieces announce themselves as special, always a little more elongated or compressed than one might have thought; yet they establish a pervasive sense of rightness. Discreet these objects may be, but they are nothing less than thrilling. As they have so often in the past, with their customary consummate skill, Trimarchi and Farresin have charted a new way forward for design. Many people will doubtless be looking at this show and studying it closely, hoping to learn from their moves, which is all to the good. But there will never be another Formafantasma. Truly, they are a cut above.
