Gaetano Pesce Dark Green Street Armchairs

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Gaetano Pesce Dark Green Street Armchairs

About the Item

Gaetano Pesce, pair of green street chairs, in cast resin, rubber and steel, Italy, 1984. Extremely rare first edition armchairs by Gaetano Pesce. This chair was called after the street in New York were Pesce started his company. In his designs Pesce combined industrial manufacturing techniques with amorphous forms and a humoristic twist. The Green Street chair reminds of a eight legged insect, with a face in the back. The red stroke is on a different place on every chair, to mark it as a unique object. Besides that, the armrests can be adjusted to a desired height, with the option therefore of putting them at an asymmetrical height with would fit with the design of this pair. This chair can be recognized as a first edition by the armrests and the material. The cast resin faded from black to dark grey and lost it’s glaze. This chair should be considered as a work of art, not as a chair for daily use. Gaetano Pesce (1939) is a very versatile designer, architect, interior design, exhibition designer and industrial designer. After his architecture degree in Venice he worked in various cultural fields besides design and architecture such as kinetic and serial art, sculpting and film. He was one of the founders the 'N' Group, a movement that focusses mainly on programmed art. His oeuvre is known for the fact that is blurs the lines between design, art, urban planning and architecture. His use of materials is typical for postmodern design since he makes use of plastic, resin and foam. Please note that price is per item, not for the set.

Creator:
Gaetano Pesce (Designer)
Dimensions:
Height: 37.01 in (94 cm)Width: 23.04 in (58.5 cm)Depth: 21.46 in (54.5 cm)Seat Height: 17.72 in (45 cm)
Style:
Mid-Century Modern (Of the Period)
Materials and Techniques:
Resin,Rubber,Steel
Place of Origin:
Italy
Period:
1980-1989
Date of Manufacture:
1984
Condition:
Wear consistent with age and use.
Seller Location:
Waalwijk, NL
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU933111838983

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Gaetano Pesce

Gaetano Pesce is of a generation of Italian architects who in the early 1960s rebelled against the industrial perfection of modernism by conceiving new furniture and objects that were at once expressive and eccentric in form; or you might say they were more like art than functionalist design.

Born in the picturesque coastal Italian city of La Spezia in 1939, Pesce was a precocious talent who could have forged a career as an artist but opted instead to go to Venice to study architecture because, as he has said, it was “the most complex of all the arts.” Rather than having new worlds opened to him at design school, however, he found the rationalist curriculum oppressive in its insistence on standardization and prescribed materials and technologies.

Pesce wanted to explore the latest of both materials and technologies to create objects and buildings never before imagined, with what he called “personalities” that spoke to the issues of the day. He was keen to examine ways to diversify mass production so that each manufactured work could be distinct.

In 1964, Pesce met Cesare Cassina, of the forward-looking furniture company C&B Italia in Milan (now known as B&B Italia), for whom he would create many important designs, beginning with a collection of what he called “transformational furniture” — two chairs and a loveseat — made entirely out of high-density polyurethane foam. To make the pieces easy to ship and cost-efficient, he proposed that after being covered in a stretch jersey, they be put in a vacuum, then heat-sealed flat between vinyl sheets. Once the foam was removed from its packaging, the piece returned to its original shape — hence, the name Up for the series, which debuted in 1969.

In addition to these pieces, Pesce proposed for the collection something he referred to as an “anti-armchair,” which took the shape of a reclining fertility goddess, the iconic Donna. Producing its complex form turned out to be a technical challenge. Bayer, the foam’s manufacturer, deemed it impossible to accomplish. Pesce persisted and came up with a new procedure, demonstrating not only the designer’s key role in researching the nature and potential of new materials but also his vital importance in “doubting rules.” The Up chair and accompanying ottoman were born, and they were revolutionary in more ways than one.

In the early 1970s, Pesce began exploring one of his key concepts, the idea of the industrial originals. Employing a mold without air holes, and adding a blood-red dye to the polyurethane, he cast a bookcase that resembled a demolished wall, the rough edges of the shelves and posts resulting from fissures in the material made by trapped air. Through his research into polyurethane, Pesce figured out a way to make a loveseat and armchair using only a simple wood frame and strong canvas covering as a mold. Since the fabric developed random folds during the injection process, the pieces were similar but not identical. Cassina named the suite of furnishings Sit Down and introduced it in 1975. By experimenting with felt soaked in polyurethane and resin, Pesce conceived I Feltri, another collection of armchairs introduced by Cassina in 1987.

Pesce has gone on to live a life that defies expectation and convention and along the way has become one of the most seminal figures in art and design.

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