Toan Nguyen graduated from ENSCI in Paris in 1995 and continued his training in Barcelona with Alberto Lievore. In 1996 he moved to Milan, where he has worked ever since, spending nearly ten years as head of the design department in Antonio Citterio's studio before founding his own Milan studio in 2009. His practice covers furniture, lighting, ceramics and technology products, and starts from how people physically use objects while giving equal weight to material quality and emotional appeal. For Viccarbe he designed Penta, an armchair of strong character and balanced proportions. Its comfort is calibrated to a standard 73 cm table, so it works at dining tables in homes and restaurants and as a guest chair in hotels and offices. A swivel version conceals its base to keep the lines clean, and an internal steel frame is wrapped in moulded polyurethane foam.
