Carmen Armchair by Francesco Soro & Cinzia Ruggeri for Driade
Designed 1987
No longer in production
Francesco Soro is an Italian architect and industrial designer who rose to prominence in the 1970’s for his celebrated tourist and residential projects in Ibiza, Spain. His most famous works, in Ibiza and Milan, were constructed during the 1970’s and 80’s, the heyday of Italian postmodernism.
Cinzia Ruggeri was an Italian artist and designer associated with the Memphis Group. She is best known for her whimsical and surreal garments and objects, which married such unexpected materials as velvet, leather, beads, and ping pong balls. Her work in fashion and industrial design subverted form and traditional use, and she maintained that she was an artist before designer.
Soro and Ruggeri’s collaboration began in 1987 at the behest of architect Enrico Astori, founder of Driade, who requested the design of a chair which would be both original and outside of the conventions of popular 1980’s industrial design. The wire frame was conceived of (and prototyped without drawing) by Soro, while Ruggeri selected the silk upholstery, which features different colors for the seat and backrest. Silk roses were added to the arms “as a tribute to women,” with conceptual approaches to femininity and the body being a recurring theme of Ruggeri’s oeuvre. A funny aside related to me by Arch. Francesco Soro is that Ruggeri initially wanted to include a bed for her cat into the base of the design, but they ultimately decided that would be a bit over-the-top. The result was the chair, Carmen, the first of two chairs in Soro’s Magathon series.
A Carmen armchair was used in the Star Trek: Deep Space 9 episode, “Necessary Evil,” in the home of Vaatrik Pallra on Bajor. As you can see from the screencaps, the distinctive silk roses did not make their way into the episode.
References:
Arch. Francesco Soro. “About.” https://www.francescosoroarchitetto.it/about/.
Keeps, David A. “Inside Design Legend Francesco Soro’s Fully Customized Milan Apartment.” 1st Dibs - Introspective Magazine, February 19, 2020.
https://www.1stdibs.com/introspective-magazine/collage-milano/.Luquet-Gad, Ingrid. “Cinzia Ruggeri.” Artforum, March 1, 2019.
https://www.artforum.com/events/cinzia-ruggeri-243864/.Frieze. “Cinzia Ruggeri’s Art and Fashion,” August 1, 2025.
https://www.frieze.com/article/cinzia-ruggeris-art-and-fashion.Soro, Francesco. Personal correspondence with Eno Farley, e-mail. August 18, 2025.
Used in:
Deep Space Nine
