Icon, Mara‘s latest seating line has been selected for the ADI Design Index and will now compete for the Compasso d’Oro ADI 2024. This new collection from the historic Italian design-oriented company is enjoying one success and one award after another as proof of its innovative and original design, the result of Mara’s skilful research into design and collaboration with Marcello Ziliani.
In fact, Icon has been awarded the ADI Design Index 2023 (in the ‘Design for Living’ category), a prestigious award from the Industrial Design Association, which annually brings together the best and will thus be able to compete for the Compasso d’Oro ADI 2024 – the year of the 70th anniversary of the institution of the award, born in Milan in 1954 from an idea by Gio Ponti.
“Becoming part of the ADI Design Index, besides representing a great emotion, confirms the company’s efforts and attention towards a quality production method, increasingly oriented towards design and people’s well-being,” declare Laura and Luciano Marchina, managing director and CEO of Mara respectively. “We believe that beauty and functionality combined with a formal simplicity capable of adapting to all types of environments, are identifying features of the Icon collection and represent the essence of our Made in Italy concept: the timeless union of innovation and design”.
With its versatile, ergonomic, aesthetically accurate character, Icon has distinguished itself on the international scene, emerging for its technical as much as formal peculiarities. The collection began as an armchair and then developed into a complete series of seats (with high back, in lounge, stool or desk versions, associated with a plurality of bases) that share a technical DNA but at the same time a multifunctional identity, therefore suitable for residential, hospitality and office contexts.
Icon revisits the typical cockpit seat by equipping itself with an integrated mechanism that allows independent movement of the seat and backrest. The aesthetics are soft and linear, characterised by clean, sinuous contours, the receding armrest facing backwards with an edge that rises upwards, creating an attractive, modern product. The abundant cushioning then creates the right comfort, supporting the most demanding work moments as well as pleasant conversation occasions around a dining table. Even more enveloping is the Icon Highback model thanks to the high back that amplifies the feeling of comfort, while the swivel mechanism is a further element of practicality and dynamism that defines this chair.
To complete these virtuous qualities, there is also the sustainable aspect of the collection: Icon is in fact made “at kilometre zero”, in the company’s production site and through local suppliers; the careful design makes it extremely robust, therefore durable over time; indifferent even to the passage of styles or fashions, given the possibility of changing clothes thanks to the removable cover.
For all these characteristics, not only in terms of form design, but also product innovation and sustainability, Icon has become part of the ADI Design Index, which rewards products that stand out for their originality and functional and typological innovation, for the production processes adopted, for the materials used and for the formal synthesis, characterised by ethical, social and sustainable value. Selected at the ADI Permanent Design Observatory, these products will become part of a yearbook, a dedicated website and a series of exhibitions staged between Milan and Rome, in the presence of institutions and authorities.
The Mara collection will therefore find an amplified visibility – after having participated with great success among the public and professionals at the main events in the sector – thanks to this double exhibition, an occasion in which the volume collecting the products nominated ADI Design Index 2023 is also presented: on 6 November at the ADI Design Museum in Milan, then at the WeGil space in Rome, on 27 November. A journey through the most striking and surprising creations put into production in the last year.
