PurplePrice Mag · · 2 min read
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Kartell is the company that, more than any other, turned plastic into a noble material for furniture. It is based in Noviglio, just outside Milan, and its presses have produced some of the most famous chairs, lamps and bookcases in Italian design.
From car accessories to the home
Kartell was founded in 1949 by the chemical engineer Giulio Castelli. At first it made car accessories and plastic housewares, in a material that was then new and viewed with suspicion. In the 1960s the company moved into furniture, working with leading designers. In 1964 the K 1340 children's chair by Marco Zanuso and Richard Sapper, colourful, light and stackable, won the Compasso d'Oro. Shortly afterwards Joe Colombo designed the stacking Universale chair (1965-1967), made entirely of plastic.
From the mid-1960s the architect Anna Castelli Ferrieri, the founder's wife, also worked with Kartell. Her plastic stacking units, cylindrical containers that can be piled up at will, became one of the company's symbols; in 1987 her 4870 chair won the Compasso d'Oro.
MoMA and the crisis
International recognition came in 1972 with the exhibition Italy: The New Domestic Landscape at MoMA in New York, where Kartell showed pieces by Gae Aulenti, Ettore Sottsass, Zanuso and Sapper that later entered the museum's collection. In the 1980s, however, the public went back to preferring handcrafted wooden furniture and the company went through a difficult period.
The revival under Claudio Luti
In 1988 Kartell was taken over by Claudio Luti, Castelli's son-in-law, who came from the fashion world. Luti brought in internationally known designers such as Antonio Citterio, Ron Arad, Vico Magistretti, Piero Lissoni and above all Philippe Starck. The results included Arad's flexible Bookworm bookshelf, Magistretti's Maui chairs and Starck's La Marie, the first chair in clear polycarbonate. It was followed in the early 2000s by the Louis Ghost, a transparent Louis XVI armchair moulded in a single piece, which became one of the best-selling design chairs in the world.
In 1999 the company opened the Kartell Museum at its Noviglio headquarters, with more than a thousand objects made since its foundation. In recent years Patricia Urquiola, Marcel Wanders, the Bouroullec brothers and Tokujin Yoshioka have also worked for Kartell.
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