De La Espada | Petit Chair

Continuing its long-term cooperation with luxury furniture brand De La Espada, Neri&Hu designed Petit Chair for recent project Papi restaurant in Paris. This versatile chair customized for gatherings in an intimately scaled setting is released in March 2021.

In the midst of the global COVID-19 landscape, which is fortunately improving, the launch of this chair embodies the same air of optimism: an ode to conviviality, a nod to the spirit of community, and a firm gesture of support to the hospitality industry which has been under immense pressure during the pandemic.

Petit is defined by its essentialist tectonic: three or four wooden legs underneath an upholstered cushion, carrying a temperament of understated elegance and composure. Embracing comfort, adaptability and formal style, Petit has “proportions and scale of the components” as its main characters, and thus is reminiscent of a return to the essential nature of a chair. Designed for the needs of Papi restaurant, whose design motif foregrounds the layered material heritage of Parisian history, Petit allows for more people to gather around a table in the arena-like dining space with its small footprint, while adding on to the possibility of how this small space can be possibly used.