Giancarlo Piretti

Italian interior and industrial designer Giancarlo Piretti was born in 1940 in Bologna. He obtained his teaching degree in drawing at the Art Institute of Bologna, and continued his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna in 1960. From 1963 until 1970, he taught interior design at the Art Institute of Bologna.

In the 1960s, Piretti also joined Italian design company Castelli as an interior designer, creating home furniture and office furnishings. Piretti’s work for Castelli garnered the company an international reputation in furniture design. His most well-known design is the plastic folding Plia Chair, which has sold over seven million copies since 1969 and is still in production. It won the BIO 5 distinction and the SMAU prize at the Ljubljana Biennial in 1971, Germany’s Gute Form prize in 1973, and can be found in permanent collections in various museums world-wide. In 1969 the complementary Plia Table was equally well-received in design circles. Other well-known design include the DCS 106 Stacking Chair; Plona Lounge Chair; Alky Chair; Plantone Folding Desk; Plano (1971, Gold Medal IBD); Planto Coat Rack; the System 61 modular sofa system; Xylon Chair (1992, two G Mark Awards 1994); and the Torsion Seating Collection (1995-6, G Mark Award 1997).