Kairo Armchair

The year 2009 marks the beginning of the collaboration between the internationally renowned designer Karim Rashid and RIVA 1920. Reflecting on the experience of designing KAIRO, Karim Rashid says: “When I designed the KAIRO chair for RIVA 1920 I was inspired by the woodworking process that takes place in order to produce a piece of furniture from a single block of wood. The unusual double-arc form carved into the chair draws its inspiration from a recent trip to Egypt where I was particularly struck by these lines that seem to conjure up an eye”. The photos illustrate different production phases of the KAIRO chair: the solid cedar block, previously squared off, is placed inside a special machine that carves the block around to obtain the required shape. To obtain the final shape of the armchair, the machine works nonstop for over 8 hours. The final smoothing, all done by hand, takes another four hours of work