A classic returns

It was a true plastics boom: when it became possible at the end of the Sixties to mould complex forms made of plastic in one piece, plastic became the ultimate material for the furniture industry. With the objects created by designers like Verner Panton, Luigi Colani or Joe Colombo organic free shapes and closed contours became the ubiquitous language of form.

At that time the Casala furniture company, which was founded in 1917, was one of the leading manufacturers in Germany. For almost two years the sculptor Alexander Begge worked on shaping and processing a series of monoblocks on behalf of Casala. The result was the Casalino, a cantilever chair which is perfectly shaped, stackable and in tune with the zeitgeist. Distinguished in 1971 with the "Good industry form" prize, today's iF Award, the Casalino soon became an export success and made Casala known worldwide. To save transport costs the finished chairs themselves were not shipped. Instead the moulds were sent to Australia, Brazil, Japan and America, where the chairs were then manufactured locally.

When today's managing director Daan van der Winkel, who bought Casala in 2002 and relocated the factory from Lauenau in Lower Saxony to Culemborg in the Netherlands, decided to resume production of the Casalino series, the old moulds had disappeared. With the firm intention to produce only the original chairs, he undertook a long search which finally led to Turkey. There he found the old moulds and there were no more obstacles to a new edition of the popular classic.

In January 2008 the time will finally come. At the Cologne furniture fair the complete original series of those days, consisting of a chair with and without armrests, a child's chair in two sizes and a stool, will be on display again after twenty years. The German designer duo Kressel + Schelle has developed a series of matching tables and a new colour range.