Hadid’s Moraine sofa @ the Powerhouse Museum

I promised to post on Zaha Hadid’s Moraine sofa a while ago. The photograph, taken by the Powerhouse Museum, gives you a good idea of how gorgeous and visceral it looks. What a shame you can’t get a sense of how amazing it would feel to throw yourself all over it – I’ll leave that to your imaginations but read on if you would like to know a little about the lounge.

As per the media release from the Powerhouse Museum

Object: Sofa, Moraine, polyurethane foam/leather, designed by Zaha Hadid, England, 2000 made by Sawaya & Moroni Italy, 2004

Recognised as one of the most innovative architects of her generation, Zaha Hadid was recently awarded the highly prestigious international Pritzker Prize for Architecture. The first woman architect to win the award she joins many architectural luminaries including, most recently, Jorn Utzon and Glenn Murcutt. Iraqi-born but English-based, Hadid has dominated the vanguard of contemporary architecture for over a decade, creating a new architectural language that has extended the boundaries on both design and building technology. So far in advance of its time has much of Hadid’s work been that many of her radical, abstract concepts are only now capable of being constructed.

Hadid’s Moraine sofa was commissioned by the renowned Italian company Sawaya & Mornoni and gives three-dimensional domestic scale to her abstract architectural forms. Conceived originally as part of a suite of furniture inspired by glacial formations, the Moraine breaks new ground in its radical curvilinear asymmetrical form, a piece of furniture that is both sculpture and seating, abstract and functional. The sofa’s moulded, free-form shape also gives physical expression to the digital design technology that has played, and will continue to play a seminal role in Hadid’s highly creative design process. Examples of the sofa are held in corporate, private and institutional collections throughout the world.

This Moraine sofa was commissioned from London-based architect Zaha Hadid by the Italian manufacturers Sawaya & Moroni.

Head down to the Powerhouse Museum if you want a first hand look at this piece in the Inspired! design across time exhibition otherwise catch a breif interview with Hadid via Pol Oxygen.