Arper

About

Arper is an Italian furniture company that designs and manufactures contemporary seating, tables and acoustic products for office, contract, hospitality and home settings. Its catalogue centres on chairs, stools, stackable chairs, lounge seating, benches and modular tables, alongside acoustic wall panels and accessories. The company is associated with Italian contemporary furniture for both workplaces and public interiors, and its products are widely specified for contract seating applications. The company was founded in 1989 in Monastier di Treviso, in the Veneto region of northern Italy, by Luigi Feltrin together with his sons Claudio and Mauro. The business grew out of an earlier artisan operation focused on leather processing, and the family's experience with materials informed the later move into furniture. The name Arper is commonly explained as a contraction of the Italian words "arredamento" (furnishing) and "per" (for). Toward the end of the 1990s, Arper shifted from a craft-based operation toward an industrial design model, expanding into new materials and technologies and growing its scale. Arper remains a family-led company headquartered in Monastier di Treviso. Luigi Feltrin died in April 2020 at the age of 85. His son Claudio Feltrin serves as president of the company, and other family members have been involved in its management. The headquarters houses the company's design and production operations, and Arper distributes its products internationally through dealers, showrooms and contract channels. Much of Arper's identity is tied to a long collaboration with the Barcelona-based design studio Lievore Altherr Molina, founded by Alberto Lievore, Jeannette Altherr and Manel Molina. That partnership produced the Catifa family, which became the company's best-known line of seating. The Catifa 53, designed by Lievore Altherr Molina in 2001, is a chair built around a curved double-shell seat that can be paired with a wide range of bases, materials and finishes for residential and contract use. The Catifa 46, introduced in 2004, is a smaller, stackable variant intended for contract environments where seating must be stored or arranged in large numbers. Beyond the Catifa range, Arper's collections include the Aava chair, designed by Antti Kotilainen in 2013, which uses a minimal shell on wood or metal bases, and the Nuur modular table system by Simon Pengelly, introduced around 2011, which received design recognition. The company also produces the Parentesit acoustic wall module, a collection of sound-absorbing panels designed to reduce background noise in shared spaces, reflecting Arper's expansion into acoustic products for open-plan interiors. In recent years Arper has placed growing emphasis on sustainability and lower-carbon materials. The company has published Environmental Product Declarations for products in the Catifa range and has introduced recycled-plastic versions such as Catifa (RE) 46 and Catifa (RE) 53. In 2024 it launched Catifa Carta, a chair whose shell is made from PaperShell, a material the company describes as sheets of kraft paper bonded with a natural resin. The company states that the material is intended to reduce the chair's carbon footprint. These claims are presented by Arper as part of its stated sustainability programme. Arper's products are used across a range of markets, including corporate offices, conference and meeting spaces, hospitality interiors such as hotels and restaurants, public and waiting areas, and residential homes. The company's emphasis on versatile, stackable and configurable seating has made its collections common in contract and commercial interiors, while lines such as Catifa and Aava are also marketed for home use. Arper presents itself as a designer and maker of Italian contemporary furniture serving both private and public environments.