B-line Boomerang Armchair

Type: Sectional upholstered fabric armchair

Manufacture year: 1968

Designer: Rodolfo Bonetto

Boomerang is a welcoming lounge chair featuring a flat pocket at the back for use as magazine holder and is characterised by soft and essential lines. Its apparent simplicity is misleading and is the result of the work of Rodolfo Bonetto, one of the masters of Italian design, who created a solid internal steel structure for it, with the unmistakably shaped lateral profiles that inspired its name. It has specifically designed screws that are machined on a lathe and then chrome-plated, while the folds in the upholstery fabric are done by hand. Boomerang combines high-quality materials with methods based on a craftsmen type production that remains strictly made in Italy. In its more social interpretation furthermore, by joining several elements together, it becomes a modular sofa.

Boomerang - A single armchair featuring a flat back pocket; placed side by side, several elements can be used to create modular sofas.‎

The internal steel structure is padded with polyurethane foam and upholstered in fabric.‎

Part of the MoMA permanent collection in New York.‎

Dimensions: W740xD900xH700mm

Boomerang armchair, design by Rodolfo Bonetto for BLine takes its name from the shape of the steel frame, which is highlighted by the chrome-plated steel profiles on either side. These allow for the chairs to be linked together easily so as to create modular sofas.

The frame is padded with polyurethane foam and available covered in a variety of fabrics.

The feet are made of steel and rubber. The Boomerang lounge chair, a great example of 1970s design is part of the Museum of Modern Art permanent collection in New York.

Rodolfo Bonetto was born in Milan in 1929. He abandoned his successful career as a jazz drummer to become a full-time designer and opened his own studio in the late 1950s.

In the years that followed he worked in a wide variety of fields, including the design of clocks, lamps, ski-boots and cars. Although he himself was self-taught, Bonetto became an important teacher at the Hochschule Gestaltung at Ulm and later at the ISIA in Rome. During his lifetime he was awarded 8 golden compasses, including one honoring his professional career. He died in 1991 in Milan.

Rodolfo Bonetto: Design is like holding a butterfly: if you hold it too tight it dies, if you open your hands too much it flies away