PEP BONET BERTRAN (Barcelona, 1941) for BD Editions Tuman armchair, 1968. In chromed steel and black leather. Measurements: 76 x 60 x 90 cm. The Tuman armchair was designed by Pep Bonet for Levesta and for Bd Ediciones, of which he was founder. In this armchair Bonet is close to the rationalist trend advocated by the Bauhaus and applied by GATEPAC. Thus, his design refers to classic, functional and essential formulations without renouncing formal beauty, combined with an intelligent use of new materials. He started from the need to create a piece of furniture suitable for the spaces he was building, a modern, formally original, comfortable and relatively inexpensive seat. The formal reference for this design is the Tucuman bird, and despite its sinuousness it gives the impression that its structure is composed of a single piece. The large cushion that forms the seat is supported by steel leaf springs, which originally accounted for thirty percent of the production cost, and which give the chair great elasticity and comfort. The original model is upholstered in skai, a symbol of modernity in the sixties and seventies, and in fact the Tuman armchair won Bonet the 1974 design prize in the competition for furniture upholstered in this material at the Spanish Furniture Fair in Valencia. Pep Bonet is a Catalan architect and designer trained at the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura, a member of Studio PER along with Cristian Cirici, Lluís Clotet and Óscar Tusquets, and a founding partner of BD Ediciones de Diseño. He has received awards such as the FAD Interior Architecture Award and the Delta ADI-FAD, among others.