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A stone chair on a white background
COURTESY STUDIO TWENTYSEVEN

June 15, 2023

BellonBouillot’s PAW Chair Receives a Sculptural Update

Softness in stone inspires this new edition of the Parisian designer’s iconic chair.

By: Kelly Beamon

Curvy, cozy, and warm aren’t qualities normally projected onto stone. But for the unique PAW M-T chair, Parisian designers BellonBouillot, in collaboration with Zebina, wanted to “evoke a surreal vision of a comfortable lounge” using a material more commonly associated with coldness and rigidity. 

Long fascinated by Greek, Etruscan, and Roman antiquities at the Louvre Museum, the studio founders Guillaume Bellon and Antoine Bouillot knew that exploring the museum’s collections of ancient sculptures could yield ideal models for the surreal expression they had in mind. “The design plays with time and shortening history, like all perfect travertine sculptures from the Greek and Roman wing of the Louvre. Rough and precious, fossilized in time,” the designers wrote in a joint statement.

two black and white portraits
Guillaume Bellon and Antoine Bouillot. BELLONBOUILLOT & ZEBINA

Softness in Stone

a black and white image of a stone chair being formed by robotic machining
Made from a solid block of stone, the PAW chair is formed by robotic machining combined with days of hand-polishing to achieve a soft finish and create a functional, physically comfortable seat. COURTESY STUDIO TWENTYSEVEN

By collaborating with Italian artisans, they were able to combine traditional craft techniques with robotics to realize their concept. Carved from a solid block of stone, the limited-edition, sculptural chair displays a balance of advanced technology and old-world craftsmanship: Its complex curves are hand-polished for days to replicate softness and to create a functional, physically comfortable seat, which is the design goal after all.

Limited-edition PAW stone chairs are available exclusively for Studiotwentyseven, with the 28- by 49-inch seat in travertine, marble, or even pink and green onyx. “Many prototypes were completed in order for it to feel comfortable,” the designers say. “Now it’s the perfect place for a moment of meditative reflection.” 

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