Mario Bellini “Lira & Liuto” chair for Cassina, bordeaux leather, Italy, 1989The "Lira e Liuto" was designed by Mario Bellini for Cassina in 1989, extending the formal logic of his landmark CAB chair — itself a milestone in Italian postwar furniture design — into a more enveloping, organically resolved form. Where the CAB stretched leather panels over a tubular steel skeleton, the Lira wraps the entire chair in a single continuous skin: saddle leather stitched directly over a metal and foam structure, encasing legs, seat, and backrest in one unbroken surface. The result dissolves the boundary between upholstery and frame in a way that only the finest Italian leather craft allows.The rounded backrest carries a distinctive relief pattern — curved panels divided by topstitched seams — that gives the chair its sculptural quality without relying on ornament. A small arch cut into the lower back lightens the mass and recalls the instrument whose name the chair takes.