Giancarlo Piretti

The best-known seats by Giancarlo Piretti (Bologna, 1940) stand out in the history of 20th century design as made in Italy icons. From the folding chair Plia, exhibited in the permanent collection of the MoMA in New York and designed in 1967 for Anonima Castelli, up to the padded Alky armchair, made in 1971 for the same brand (for which the designer began working designing interiors and furniture after attending the Academy of Fine Arts of Bologna), Piretti’s furnishings combine aesthetics, comfort and modularity. Among the numerous awards he obtained on an international scale, the designer won two Compasso d’Oro, the first in 1981 for the Vertebra seating system; the second in 1988 for the Piretti Collection series of office chairs, a system of over 50 seating models based on a patented mechanism that adjusts the tension of the backrest according to the user's weight.

Designer items

Meet the designers

Gio Ponti

Piero Fornasetti

Fratelli Castiglioni

Joe Colombo

Nanda Vigo

Ettore Sottsass

Marco Zanuso

Luigi Caccia Dominioni

Ico Parisi

Charles & Ray Eames

Gae Aulenti

Pietro Chiesa

Vico Magistretti

Giotto Stoppino

Tobia Scarpa

Carlo Nason

Marcello Cuneo

Vittorio Dassi

Paolo Buffa

Max Ingrand

Gastone Rinaldi

Pia Guidetti Crippa

Gaetano Pesce

Richard Sapper

Ingo Maurer

Gabriella Crespi

Paul McCobb

Paul Tuttle

Nendo Design

Alvaro Siza

Carl Jacob Jucker

Ernesto Basile

Sergio Mazza

Osvaldo Borsani

Oscar Torlasco

Le Corbusier

Willy Rizzo

Gaetano Sciolari

Carlo De Carli

Angelo Lelli

Gino Sarfatti

Marcel Breuer

Carlo Scarpa

Massimo & Lella Vignelli

Claudio Salocchi

Toni Zuccheri

Aldo Tura

Verner Panton

Giancarlo Piretti

Gianfranco Frattini

Guglielmo Ulrich

Franco Albini

Philippe Starck

Angelo Mangiarotti

Enzo Mari

Tito Agnoli

Kazuide Takahama

Eero Saarinen

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Carlo Ratti

Alessandro Mendini

Mario Bellini

Cleto Munari

Carlo Mollino

Bruno Munari

Hans J. Wegner

Vladimir Kagan

Studio BBPR

Giovanni Michelucci

Norman Foster

George Nelson

Paolo Venini

Gerrit Rietveld