The Sacco chair (also known as a beanbag chair, or simply a beanbag), is a large pear-shaped bag or sack (Italian: sacco) made of leather or fabric and filled with expanded polystyrenefoam pellets ('beans') or a similar material. It is an example of anatomic design, as its form is determined by the user's body. The Sacco chair was designed by Piero Gatti, Cesare Paolini and Franco Teodoro [it] in 1968, and became "one of the icons of the Italian anti-design movement. Its complete flexibility and formlessness made it the perfect antidote to the static formalism of mainstream Italian furniture of the period” according to design historian Penny Spark.[1][2][3]
Sacco was introduced in 1968 by three Italian designers: Piero Gatti, Cesare Paolini, and Franco Teodoro.[2] The object was created in the Italian Modernism movement.[10] Italian modernism's design was highly inspired by newly available technologies. Post-war technology allowed an increase in the processes of production by introducing new materials such as polystyrene. The idea of mass-produced goods made within an inexpensive price range appealed to consumers. It therefore created the need for a revolution in the creative and manufacturing processes.
The architect, Cesare Paolini, was born in Genoa and graduated from the Polytechnic University of Turin. Franco Teodoro and Piero Gatti, the designers, studied at the Istituto Tecnico Industriale Statale per le Arti Grafiche e Fotografiche of Turin. They established their architecture firm in Turin in 1965.[11]
From left to right, Franco Teodoro, Cesare Paolini and Piero Gatti, creator of Sacco, in Paris in 1969
Piero Gatti, Cesare Paolini and Franco Teodoro, inspired by their designer predecessors, came up in 1968 with the design of Sacco, the "shapeless chair".[3] Although it was not the first design of an amorphous chair in Italian history, Sacco was the first successful product created in partnership with Zanotta. The predecessor of the product had a major design flaw. It was unable to sustain its form and never reached production. Sacco addressed that flaw with the use of leather for the exterior and carefully placed stitching. The use of leather was not coincidental, as at that time the textile was a product of national pride in Italy.[12] The target user of the chair was the hippie community, as their non-conformist values aligned with the chair's unconventional design.
Sacco was part of the 1972 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York Italy: The New Domestic Landscape – Achievements and Problems of Italian Design.[13]
Awards
The Sacco was recognised with a M.I.A. award at the 1968 Mostra Internazionale dell'Arredamento in Monza,[14] and received the 1973 BIO 5 award at the Biennale of Design in Ljubljana.[citation needed]
In 2020, exactly fifty years after the design was first overlooked by the ADI jury, failing to win the 1970 award, the Sacco chair received the Compasso d'Oro Award and was added to the collection of the ADI Design Museum in Milan.[7][4][5][4]
Collections
This section needs expansion with: additional references. You can help by adding to it. (January 2025)
The bean bag chair has been prominently featured in several exhibitions, showcasing its significance in design and art history. At the Museum of Modern Art, New York, it was included in the ‘‘Recent Acquisitions: Design Collection’’ exhibition from 1 December 1970 to 31 January 1971, and later in ‘‘Italy: The New Domestic Landscape,’’ held from 26 May to 11 September 1972. It also appeared at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in ‘‘The Italian Metamorphosis, 1943–1968,’’ from 7 October 1994 to 22 January 1995, which subsequently traveled to the Triennale di Milano (February–May 1995) and Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg (May–September 1995).
Ingrid Halland, The unstable object: Glifo, Blow, Sacco at MoMA, 1972, Journal of Design History, Volume 33, Issue 4, December 2020, Pages 329–345, Oxford University Press, https://doi.org/10.1093/jdh/epz051
Cindi Strauss, Germano Celant, J. Taylor Kubala, Radical – Italian Design 1965–1985 – The Dennis Freedman Collection, Yale University Press, 2020
Mel Byars, The Design Encyclopedia, New York, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1994
Emilio Ambasz [a cura di], Italy: The New Domestic Landscape – Achievements and Problems of Italian Design, New York, Museum Of Modern Art, 1972
Margaret Timmers, The Way We Live Now: Designs for Interiors 1950 to the Present Day, Victoria and Albert Museum, 1978
Grace Lees-Maffei, Kjetil Fallan [editors], Made in Italy Rethinking a Century of Italian Design, London, Bloomsbury Academic, 2014
Paola Antonelli, Matilda McQuaid, Objects of Design from the Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.), 2003
Bernhard E. Bürdek, Design Storia, Teoria e Pratica del Design del Prodotto, Roma, Gangemi Editore, 2008
Victoria and Albert Museum. Circulation Department, Whitechapel Art Gallery, Modern Chairs 1918–1970, London: Lund Humphries. 1971
Victor Papanek, Design for the Real World, New York: 1974
Moderne Klassiker, Mobel, die Geschichte machen, Hamburg, 1982
Kathryn B. Hiesinger and George H. Marcus III (eds.), Design Since 1945, Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1983
Fifty Chairs that Changed the World: Design Museum Fifty, London's Design Museum, London, ISBN978-1-84091-540-2
Charlotte Fiell, Peter Fiell, Plastic dreams: synthetic visions in design, Carlton Books Ltd, 2010, ISBN978-1-906863-08-1
Anne Bony, Design: History, Main Trends, Major Figures, Larousse/Chambers, 2005
Bernd Polster, Claudia Newman, Markus Schuler, The A–Z of Modern Design, Merrell Publishers Ltd, 2009, ISBN978-1-85894-502-6
Domitilla Dardi, Il design in cento oggetti, Federico Motta Editore, Milano, 2008, ISBN978-88-7179-586-7
Anty Pansera, Il Design del mobile italiano dal 1946 a oggi, Laterza, 1990
Charles Boyce, Joseph T. Butler, Dictionary of Furniture, Simon and Schuster, New York, 2014, ISBN978-1-62873-840-7
^MOMA, Museum of Modern Art, New York. "Object lesson: Paola Antonelli". Museum of Modern Art, New York. Archived from the original on 2017-04-24. Retrieved 2020-11-17.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^Raizman, David (2010). "Part V: Humanism and Luxury: International Modernism and Mass Culture after World War II (1945–1960)". In May, Susie (ed.). History of Modern Design Second Edition. Laurence King Publishing. pp. 256–306. ISBN978-1-85669-694-4.
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