Today’s Design Icon is the D70, a sofa bed designed by Osvaldo Borsani and presented in 1954 at the X Triennale di Milano.

The sofa is made by the newborn Tecno, a company founded in 1953 by Osvaldo and his brother Fulgenzio, with the aim of transforming the family business – until then artisan – into an industrial reality.

With the Tecno brand, the Borsani brothers will create objects that are elegant in form but industrial in production.

“When we used the word design”, he himself declares, “we did it with deep respect, because a new way of thinking and building was named: it was a word that only us, the experts, used while we tried, moving in a deaf and difficult context, to explain, introduce, disseminate the methods of design applied to industry.”

The mechanism and architecture are enhanced and placed at the center of the project, visually they are relevant and of great impact.

The result is a functional and elegant furniture, which stands out for the uniqueness of the design and the clean lines. In addition, it is extremely comfortable thanks to the adaptability of its soft parts.

The backrest can be tilted in any position thanks to a knob that governs a mechanism composed of a lever with stop tooth that fits into a graduated flat.

It is a sofa with movable wings with metal frame, while the upholstered furniture is made with polyurethane foam.

Elaborating the concept and technology of the architecture of the D70, in 1955 Borsani developed P40, a chaise luonge with adjustable inclination that is proposed as a more versatile and compact version than competing products (it is very beautiful and we wrote about it here).