Marmolla
Curated by Benvenuto Saba
Designer: Benvenuto Saba
Company: MaxMarmi
Everything begins with the duality of positive and negative, concave and convex, full and empty, inside and outside.
The MarMolla (A+B) seat, created by Sardinian sculptor Benvenuto Saba, is as minimalist in appearance as it is profound in its critical reflection on the concept of seating: a moment of pause, a conscious choice to interrupt our actions and reconnect with the deeper meaning of being present here and now.
This seat is a space designed to be shared by only two individuals. On one side, a subtle, neutral surface welcomes those caught in the constant rush of time. A convex backrest accompanies the fleeting nature of this suspended moment. Here, everything focuses on the skin of a hollow stone, on the surface of things, on the meaning of the instant and on the instinctive ability to seize a moment and transform it into a revolution.
Here, nature reveals its details through the interplay of light and its centuries-old creative mastery. Yet everything depends on brief and imperceptible moments—the blink of an eye.
On the opposite side, time takes on a maternal, reflective and welcoming character. The backrest becomes concave, embracing the imprint of a primordial human form: a welcoming, shaping dimension that invites the user to experience an anatomical seat where the restraint of the design softens the raw perception of stone.
Silence finds its own time here. It becomes a luxury, a dimension to be explored within the very volume of the stone, whose sounds and crystalline structures paradoxically amplify its resonance.
The entire structure is rigorously suspended from the ground by springs, a support system that embodies the unstable yet dynamic nature of time itself. Its elasticity becomes the driving force through which we choose the moment of our existence, appreciating the appropriate side of the seat and revealing ourselves as observers, creators or listeners within our own reflective dimension.
The work
The Creator
Benvenuto Saba
Sculptor and art and design photographer
Biography
Born in Siamanna, near Cagliari, in 1956, he moved to Versilia with his family at an early age, where he still lives today. His passion for the visual arts emerged during adolescence and was further developed first at the Stagio Stagi Art Institute in Pietrasanta (Lucca), where he graduated in 1976, and later through his studies in Sculpture and Photography at the Academy of Fine Arts of Carrara, where he obtained his diploma in 1983.
He combines his work as an art and design photographer with his activity as a sculptor. Throughout his career, he has collaborated with renowned designers including Bruno Munari, Enzo Mari, Angelo Mangiarotti, Roberto Sambonet and Marco Ferreri, and has worked—and continues to work—with some of the most important Italian companies producing modern design furniture.
His collaborations include Danese Milano, Alessi, Martinelli Luce and Ingo Maurer. His works consistently explore a dual purpose: a balance between the aesthetic appeal of an artwork and the functionality of an everyday object. Today, his creations are part of important Italian and international collections.