Serena Michelucci

Poltronova is known for embracing the creativity that opposites can introduce to a space. Its radical modernist furniture and lighting fixtures are simultaneously grounded in classic aesthetics and inspired by what were then new and provocative artistic movements in mid-century Italy, when the company was founded. This tension resulted in unique and extraordinary pieces at the manufacturer, from eccentric, glove-shaped armchairs to striking dining tables that feature a mix of materials and textures.

Italian designer Sergio Cammilli founded Poltronova in Tuscany in 1957. That same year, it won the Compasso d’Oro for the Panchetto chair designed by Luciano Nustrini. Revolutionary Italian architect Ettore Sottsass — a maestro of postmodern design who would later establish the Memphis Group — came on board as an art director in 1958. Poltronova manufactured many of his furniture and ceramic designs. Sottsass’s lighting, seating and other works for Poltronova showcase the designer’s bold experimentation with solid wood, glass, metal and laminate materials.

Other established names in Italian furniture design collaborated with Poltronova’s Sottsass and Cammilli, including Giovanni Michelucci, Gae Aulenti and Angelo Mangiarotti. However, the company truly set itself apart in its collaborations with Superstudio and Archizoom Associati, groups that were part of an irreverent, avant-garde movement in art and design that took shape during the 1960s in Florence, Turin and Milan. Collectives associated with the movement — which would one day be called Italian Radical design — drew on Pop art and minimalism and explored working with unconventional materials to create colorful, quirky and uniquely shaped objects and furnishings. At the time, Poltronova also worked with up-and-coming names in the art world, like painter Max Ernst and sculptor Mario Ceroli.

Poltronova showcased its groundbreaking designs in many exhibitions, such as “La Casa Abitata,” which was held in Florence in 1965. At Milan's Eurodomus trade show in 1970, Poltronova debuted an entire bedroom collection designed by Sottsass — including his sensuous Ultrafragola mirror. The brand’s furnishings were included in a 1972 exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art called "Italy: The New Domestic Landscape," and in 1977, Poltronova again won the Compasso d’Oro for a book called Fare Mobili con Poltronova (Making Furniture with Poltronova).

Poltronova's enduring and acclaimed furniture designs came to be loved far outside Italy. During the 1960s, importer Charles Stendig represented the company and helped introduce it to the American market.

In 2005, Poltronova established the Centro Studi Poltronova to recreate some of the company's iconic furniture. The brand has also recently collaborated with English architect Nigel Coates, who worked with a Poltronova master craftsman in Italy to design a series of limited-edition furniture in 2011, including the Domo chair.

On 1stDibs, find vintage Poltronova tables, seating, storage cabinets and more.

Organically shaped, clean-lined and elegantly simple are three terms that well describe vintage mid-century modern furniture. The style, which emerged primarily in the years following World War II, is characterized by pieces that were conceived and made in an energetic, optimistic spirit by creators who believed that good design was an essential part of good living.

ORIGINS OF MID-CENTURY MODERN FURNITURE DESIGN

• Emerged during the mid-20th century 
• Informed by European modernism, Bauhaus, International style, Scandinavian modernism and Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture
• A heyday of innovation in postwar America 
• Experimentation with new ideas, new materials and new forms flourished in Scandinavia, Italy, the former Czechoslovakia and elsewhere in Europe

CHARACTERISTICS OF MID-CENTURY MODERN FURNITURE DESIGN

• Simplicity, organic forms, clean lines  
• A blend of neutral and bold Pop art colors 
• Use of natural and man-made materials — alluring woods such as teak, rosewood and oak; steel, fiberglass and molded plywood 
• Light-filled spaces with colorful upholstery 
• Glass walls and an emphasis on the outdoors 
• Promotion of functionality

MID-CENTURY MODERN FURNITURE DESIGNERS TO KNOW

• Charles and Ray Eames
• Eero Saarinen
• Milo Baughman
• Florence Knoll
• Harry Bertoia 
• Isamu Noguchi 
• George Nelson 
• Danish modernists Hans Wegner and Arne Jacobsen, whose emphasis on natural materials and craftsmanship influenced American designers and vice versa

ICONIC MID-CENTURY MODERN FURNITURE DESIGNS

• Eames lounge chair
• Nelson daybed
• Florence Knoll sofa
• Egg chair
• Womb chair
• Noguchi coffee table
• Barcelona chair

VINTAGE MID-CENTURY MODERN FURNITURE ON 1STDIBS

The mid-century modern era saw leagues of postwar American architects and designers animated by new ideas and new technology. The lean, functionalist International-style architecture of Le Corbusier and Bauhaus eminences Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius had been promoted in the United States during the 1930s by Philip Johnson and others. New building techniques, such as “post-and-beam” construction, allowed the International-style schemes to be realized on a small scale in open-plan houses with long walls of glass.

Materials developed for wartime use became available for domestic goods and were incorporated into mid-century modern furniture designs. Charles and Ray Eames and Eero Saarinen, who had experimented extensively with molded plywood, eagerly embraced fiberglass for pieces such as the La Chaise and the Womb chair, respectively. 

Architect, writer and designer George Nelson created with his team shades for the Bubble lamp using a new translucent polymer skin and, as design director at Herman Miller, recruited the Eameses, Alexander Girard and others for projects at the legendary Michigan furniture manufacturer. 

Harry Bertoia and Isamu Noguchi devised chairs and tables built of wire mesh and wire struts. Materials were repurposed too: The Danish-born designer Jens Risom created a line of chairs using surplus parachute straps for webbed seats and backrests.

The Risom lounge chair was among the first pieces of furniture commissioned and produced by legendary manufacturer Knoll, a chief influencer in the rise of modern design in the United States, thanks to the work of Florence Knoll, the pioneering architect and designer who made the firm a leader in its field. The seating that Knoll created for office spaces — as well as pieces designed by Florence initially for commercial clients — soon became desirable for the home.

As the demand for casual, uncluttered furnishings grew, more mid-century furniture designers caught the spirit.

Classically oriented creators such as Edward Wormley, house designer for Dunbar Inc., offered such pieces as the sinuous Listen to Me chaise; the British expatriate T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings switched gears, creating items such as the tiered, biomorphic Mesa table. There were Young Turks such as Paul McCobb, who designed holistic groups of sleek, blond wood furniture, and Milo Baughman, who espoused a West Coast aesthetic in minimalist teak dining tables and lushly upholstered chairs and sofas with angular steel frames.

As the collection of vintage mid-century modern chairs, dressers, coffee tables and other furniture for the living room, dining room, bedroom and elsewhere on 1stDibs demonstrates, this period saw one of the most delightful and dramatic flowerings of creativity in design history.