The Skin Trade: Cleaf

At a one-day conference a few years ago, architect Matteo Thun delivered a somewhat eyebrow-raising indictment of the legendary Memphis design collective, of which he was, of course, one of its illustrious co-founders. Claiming that it had all just been a bit of a lark, he went on to explain how they had no money at the time and so used whatever they could lay their hands on to make objects.

And the prevalence of all those now iconic decorative surfaces, often interpreted as part of a postmodern, antagonistic discourse? According to Thun, the group only had one sponsor – a company that made decorative laminates – so it was a case of necessity being the mother of creative gesture.

Memphis may (or may not) have treated surfaces superficially, but in no way could the same be said of family-owned, Italian manufacturer Cleaf, which has been specialising since 1975 in innovative surfaces for both the furniture and interior-design industries. The go-to experts for architects and designers looking for uncompromised solutions for the skin, as it were, of their projects and products, Cleaf has developed a comprehensive, yet continually expanding, system of high-quality faced panels, laminates, edges and semi-finished products.

“We have 60 different textures and over 600 decorative papers,” explains founder Luciano Caspani’s son Roberto. “This means over 36,000 surface permutations – each combining a particular haptic value with a specific optical effect – are available.” That’s a lot of surface options.

Yet, given the critical role that surfaces play in defining interior space, making it legible, lending it identity, imbuing it with emotion, it’s perhaps no surprise. As Roberto puts it: “Every room and every piece of furniture emits continuous signals that consciously or unconsciously affect the user’s perceptions and performance. Surfaces are an important element of this perceptive process and they have the ability to offer completely different sensations leaving the shape unchanged.”

Based north of Milan in Brianza, an area that lays claim to having the world’s highest concentration of furniture manufacturers, Cleaf leverages its network of customers, architects and suppliers to, excuse the metaphor, get beneath the surface – to achieve a deep and continuous dialogue with the market in terms of its needs. Not only in terms of design, but also of potential new applications. “It’s a kind of teamwork,” says Roberto, “that leads to the building of inspirational spaces for living and working. Now and in the future. Last month, we were invited by the Politecnico di Milano to give a lecture to the interior designers of tomorrow about the potentiality of our surfaces.”

Surfaces from the Antipodes, a special architectural exhibition mounted by the company in the courtyards of Milan’s Palazzo del Senato during this year’s Salone del Mobile, was precisely that – an intriguing dramatisation of the creative potential the Cleaf collection offers, designed in collaboration with multidisciplinary agencies Bestetti Associati and Studiopepe. Visitors were invited to pass through four, cube-like volumes, where the optical and tactile richness of the products’ surfaces and their striking ability to suggest the feeling of natural materials, such as rock, sand, wood and metal, was brought to the fore.

Missed it? Fear not. There’s always the CCube, Cleaf’s architect-designed showroom in Brianza, which celebrates the superficial, so to speak. A truly immersive experience, it comprises a series of curated spaces designed to inform and inspire architects and others. While in the area, you might want to see first-hand how Cleaf deploys the latest in technological innovation across four different sites to manufacture its products, each facility dedicated to a different product type, a set-up that allows for ongoing experimentation.

Cleaf definitely aren’t ones for skirting along the surface.

© Architonic