Free System

A radical innovator of our ways of living, Claudio Salocchi was not actually
an Acerbis designer, but his work presents elective affinities with the
company essence.
“All the products in the Remasters collection were purposely chosen
as icons of experimentation of their era, all having a distinctly innovative
identity and a recognisable sign. Claudio Salocchi’s design explores the
design research of the decade from the 1970s to the 1980s, for the first
time included in the Remasters collection: those 1970s when new ways
of living and experimentation were at the core of the Italian designers’
thinking. Claudio Salocchi is one of the protagonists of the creative fervour
of the 1960s and 1970s, an all-round artist with an incredible production.
The revolutionary potential of the Free System project is now more
contemporary than ever, capable of spanning different living areas and
domestic landscapes” says Francesco Meda.
In the early 1970s, Salocchi revolutionised the concept of living room,
suggesting that this area of our houses could be made up simply of
free, uninterrupted seating. In 1973, he designed Free System: a system
of padded furniture deriving from the concept of “operated flooring”, or
tatami, where the padded units could be placed freely side by side. With
its completely modular and sectional elements and from the perspective
of an optimal use of space, we can view Free System as the embodiment of the modern house utopia dreamt of by that generation of architects.
Indeed, the overcoming of any stiffness reflects an evolution towards a
more informal lifestyle, where instead of having to sit “properly”, people
now want to sit “comfortably”. A programme of padded furniture that goes
beyond the sofa model, Free System presents a series of elements (tatami,
pouf and seat with different and interchangeable backrests) that make up
a modular system that can be arranged in a variety of combinations. The
islands created by Free System are an invitation to enjoy our living rooms in
an easy, versatile and free manner.