Because good design lasts
DESIGN MATTERS 01
A series of design stories from Chart Interiors, exploring the ideas, people and products behind the manufacturers we represent. In this edition, we turn the spotlight on Anonima Castelli.
Anonima Castelli · Plia · Giancarlo Piretti
What makes a piece of furniture last?
Not simply survive, but remain relevant – still useful, still desirable and still capable of looking entirely at home decades after it was designed.
Few pieces demonstrate that better than Plia, designed by Giancarlo Piretti for Anonima Castelli in 1967.
Plia by Giancarlo Piretti for Anonima Castelli. Designed in 1967.
A simple idea. A difficult thing to achieve.
In 1967, Giancarlo Piretti designed a folding chair that did something rather clever. Plia took an object usually regarded as purely functional and turned it into a piece of considered industrial design.
At its heart was Piretti's ingenious three-disc joint: a single mechanism that allowed the seat, back and frame to fold together. The result was elegant, compact and remarkably simple to use.
But perhaps the more interesting part of the story is what happened next.
Plia didn't disappear when tastes changed. It became part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, sold in its millions, and remains in production today.
Almost sixty years later, the design still works.
Plia mechanism
Good design doesn't stand still.
Longevity doesn't mean freezing a product in time.
Over the decades, Plia has appeared in different materials, colours and finishes, while the clarity of Piretti's original idea has remained remarkably intact.
That's an important distinction. Design heritage is valuable, but only when it continues to have relevance.
A chair designed in 1967 still has to earn its place in a project in 2026 – through function, proportion, material choice and the way it responds to contemporary interiors.
The best designs don't simply belong to their period. They outlive it.
Plia in transparent polycarbonate – the original design reinterpreted for contemporary interiors.
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