The foundation for this Italian company from Padua is a family story: The brothers Romano and Dario Marcato founded Lapalma in 1978 with the dream of producing modern furniture built for eternity. This eternity related to the design as well as the durability, i.e. quality, and the manufacturing process of the products, which should be sustainable and friendly for the environment.
This all took place during a time when sustainability was still a foreign concept. Today, after more than 30 years, Lapalma is still true to their company philosophy and puts great value on the use of natural resources from controlled cultivation, like wood, leather, wicker, but also glass or metal. With their clear proportions and rather functional design as well as their high quality Lapalma products are long-lasting living companions, aesthetic and practical in one.
In cooperation with different artists and designers from all over the world Lapalma especially manufactures chairs, stools, bar stools, tables, and coffee tables. From Japan we know the designer couple Tomoko and Shin Azumi. Several of their products were presented with awards, in London they have their own design studio since 2005. They were responsible for one of the most famous Lapalma products: the LEM bar stool! Already today it counts as a design classic and was presented with the Good Design Award. Their seating sculpture AP, a futuristic stool, is made entirely of a single piece of bent plywood that needs no connecting elements at all, and received the Green-Good-DesignTM Award for environmentally friendly and sustainable production.
From the high North, to be more specific: Finland, comes Karri Monni. The interior architect and designer is known throughout the world and designed the very successful chair collection Thin for Lapalma. According to the German style magazine SCHÖNER WOHNEN it is part of the first 100 “new classics” from the 21st century. His stool Miunn for Lapalma also received acknowledgment, the Interior Innovation Award 2012. Other products by Monni for Lapalma are the minimalist table Mutka and the architectonic lounge chair Laaka.
With however many design talents Lapalma may work together, the goal is always the same: Functions suitable for daily use should be combined with always new shapes reduced to the max. Also founder Romano Mercato stays true to this rule. A designer himself he realised many of his own designs for his company Lapalma. For example, the Aria collection of stacking chairs, the height-adjustable Brio bistro table, the Seitz folding table, and many others, who all do very well without any superfluous details and are distinguished by their lightness in shape and timeless designs.