Italian heritage meets Shanghai’s cultural pulse: Poltrona Frau has unveiled its very first overseas brand museum at the Asia Pacific Experience Center in Jing’an. This marks a milestone for the century-old furniture house, following its inaugural museum at the Tolentino headquarters in 2012.
The Shanghai museum is conceived as a hybrid cultural space equal parts exhibition, workshop, and living archive designed to immerse visitors in over a hundred years of craftsmanship and design evolution. The journey unfolds through four thematic zones: the Innovation Milestones Gallery, the Leather & Materials Lab, the Craftsmanship Showcase, and a rotating Art Exhibition Pavilion.
Highlights include a timeline of icons such as the 1919 Armchair originally designed for Italian aristocracy, as well as legendary collaborations with Gio Ponti and Jean-Marie Massaud. In the Leather Lab, visitors can physically explore Pelle Frau® samples while learning about the house’s Leathership® system, where sustainability and material innovation intersect.
The Craftsmanship Showcase turns tradition into a live narrative: vintage tools, video archives, and hands-on demonstrations illustrate the hand-stitched seams and eight-way hand-tied springs that have defined Poltrona Frau’s structural aesthetics for generations.
The museum also launches with two contemporary art projects. Argentinian-born artist Felipe Pantone reimagines Massaud’s Archibald Chair with electrifying color gradients and digital-inspired graphics, while British designer Faye Toogood debuts her first Shanghai exhibition, A Squashed Space, presenting the Squash collection as tactile, sculptural expressions in leather, fabric, and form.
Beyond preserving legacy, the Shanghai museum signals Poltrona Frau’s commitment to community-building in Asia. Plans include design salons, artist dialogues, material workshops, and collaborations with local Chinese designers. In this way, the museum is less a monument and more a living forum, one where Italian craftsmanship and global creativity meet in conversation.
Source: 77° Global Furnishings Media
