The Sacco chair (also known as a beanbag chair, or simply a beanbag), is a large pear-shaped bag or sack () made of leather or fabric and filled with

expanded polystyrene Polystyrene (PS) is a synthetic polymer made from monomers of the aromatic hydrocarbon styrene. Polystyrene can be solid or foamed. General-purpose polystyrene is clear, hard, and brittle. It is an inexpensive resin per unit weight. It is a ...

foam pellets () or a similar material. It is an example of anatomic design, as its form is determined by the user's body. The ''Sacco'' chair was designed by Piero Gatti, Cesare Paolini and in 1968, and became "one of the icons of the Italian anti-design movement. Its complete flexibility and formlessness made it the perfect antidote to the static formalism of mainstream Italian furniture of the period” according to design historian Penny Spark. The ''Sacco'' chair was awarded the

Compasso d'Oro The Compasso d'Oro (; ) is an industrial design award originated in Italy in 1954. Initially sponsored by the La Rinascente, a Milanese department store, the award has been organised and managed by the Associazione per il Disegno Industriale (ADI ...

, and is in the collections of many museums, including the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

in New York,

Musée National d'Art Moderne The Musée National d'Art Moderne (; "National Museum of Modern Art") is the national museum for modern art of France. It is located in the 4th arrondissement of Paris and is housed in the Centre Pompidou. In 2021 it ranked 10th in the list of ...

in Paris, the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (abbreviated V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen ...

in London, and

ADI Design Museum The ADI Design Museum is a museum in Milan, Italy, which houses the historical collection of the ADI Compasso d'Oro Foundation, as well as hosting temporary exhibitions, public talks and other initiatives. It is dedicated to the understanding a ...

in Milan.

History

Sacco was introduced in 1968 by three Italian designers: Piero Gatti, Cesare Paolini, and Franco Teodoro. The object was created in the Italian Modernism movement. Italian modernism's design was highly inspired by newly available technologies. Post-war technology allowed an increase in the processes of production by introducing new materials such as polystyrene. The idea of mass-produced goods made within an inexpensive price range appealed to consumers. It therefore created the need for a revolution in the creative and manufacturing processes. The architect, Cesare Paolini, was born in Genoa and graduated from the

Polytechnic University of Turin The Polytechnic University of Turin (, abbreviated as PoliTO) is the oldest Italian Public university, public Institute of technology, technical university. The university offers several courses in the fields of Engineering, Architecture, Urban ...

. Franco Teodoro and Piero Gatti, the designers, studied at the ''Istituto Tecnico Industriale Statale per le Arti Grafiche e Fotografiche'' of Turin. They established their architecture firm in

Turin Turin ( , ; ; , then ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The city is main ...

in 1965. Piero Gatti, Cesare Paolini and Franco Teodoro, inspired by their designer predecessors, came up in 1968 with the design of Sacco, the "shapeless chair". Although it was not the first design of an amorphous chair in Italian history, Sacco was the first successful product created in partnership with Zanotta. The predecessor of the product had a major design flaw. It was unable to sustain its form and never reached production. Sacco addressed that flaw with the use of leather for the exterior and carefully placed stitching. The use of leather was not coincidental, as at that time the textile was a product of national pride in Italy. The target user of the chair was the hippie community, as their non-conformist values aligned with the chair's unconventional design. Sacco is part of the permanent collection of the most important museums of contemporary art throughout the world, such as the

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, the

Centre Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...

in Paris, and the

in London. Sacco was part of the 1972 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York ''Italy: The New Domestic LandscapeAchievements and Problems of Italian Design''. In 2025, the Sacco was included in ''Pirouette: Turning Points in Design,'' an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art featuring "widely recognized design icons ..highlighting pivotal moments in design history."

Awards

The Sacco was recognised with a M.I.A. award at the 1968 Mostra Internazionale dell'Arredamento in

Monza Monza (, ; ; , locally ; ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) on the Lambro, River Lambro, a tributary of the Po (river), River Po, in the Lombardy region of Italy, about north-northeast of Milan. It is the capital of the province of Mo ...

, and received the 1973 BIO 5 award at the Biennale of Design in Ljubljana. In 2020, exactly fifty years after the design was first overlooked by the

ADI Adi or ADI may refer to: Abbreviations * Acceptable daily intake, in health and medicine * Acting detective inspector, a type of police inspector * Africa Development Indicators, a compilation of data assembled by the World Bank * Alternating ...

jury, failing to win the 1970 award, the ''Sacco'' chair received the Compasso d'Oro Award and was added to the collection of the

in Milan.

Exhibitions

The bean bag chair has been prominently featured in several exhibitions, showcasing its significance in design and art history. At the

Museum of Modern Art, New York The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, and includes over 200,000 works of arc ...

, it was included in the ‘‘Recent Acquisitions: Design Collection’’ exhibition from 1 December 1970 to 31 January 1971, and later in ‘‘Italy: The New Domestic Landscape,’’ held from 26 May to 11 September 1972. It also appeared at the

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue between 88th and 89th Street (Manhattan), 89th Streets on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It hosts a permanent coll ...

in ‘‘The Italian Metamorphosis, 1943–1968,’’ from 7 October 1994 to 22 January 1995, which subsequently traveled to the

Triennale di Milano The Triennale di Milano is a museum of art and design in the Parco Sempione in Milan, in Lombardy in northern Italy. It is housed in the , built between 1931 and 1933 to designs by Giovanni Muzio and financed by Antonio Bernocchi and his ...

(February–May 1995) and Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg (May–September 1995). The

revisited the bean bag chair in its ‘‘Architecture and Design: Inaugural Installation,’’ displayed from 20 November 2004 to 7 November 2005. More recently, it was featured at the Kanal–Centre Pompidou in Brussels as part of the ‘�
Phantom Offices
��’ exhibition, held from 23 January to 30 June 2019. In September 2019, the Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine in Paris included the bean bag chair in ‘‘Architects’ Furniture: 1960–2020.’’ Lastly, it appeared in the ‘’Déjà-vu. Le design dans notre quotidien’’ exhibition at the Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain in Saint-Priest-en-Jarez, which ran from 15 December 2020 to 22 August 2021.

Collections

, Milan * Brücke-Museum, Berlin * Centro Arte e Design, Calenzano *

Dallas Museum of Art The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) is an art museum located in the Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas, along Woodall Rodgers Freeway between St. Paul and Harwood. In the 1970s, the museum moved from its previous location in Fair Park to the A ...

, Dallas *

Denver Art Museum The Denver Art Museum (DAM) is an art museum located in the Civic Center of Denver, Colorado. With an encyclopedic collection of more than 70,000 diverse works from across the centuries and world, the DAM is one of the largest art museums betwe ...

, Denver * Fondazione Triennale Design Museum, Milan *

Fonds Régional d'Art Contemporain A Fonds régional d'art contemporain (Frac) is a public regional collection of contemporary art set in one of the metropolitan or overseas regions of France. There are currently 23 Fracs across the country, organised into a national network called P ...

, Dunkerque *

Israel Museum The Israel Museum (, ''Muze'on Yisrael'', ) is an Art museum, art and archaeology museum in Jerusalem. It was established in 1965 as Israel's largest and foremost cultural institution, and one of the world's leading Encyclopedic museum, encyclopa ...

, Jerusalem * Kunstgewerbemuseum, Berlin * Kunstmuseum, Düsseldorf * Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain de Saint-Étienne, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes * Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris *

(Centre Pompidou), Paris * Museo dell'arredo contemporaneo, Russi (Ra) * ,

Ancona Ancona (, also ; ) is a city and a seaport in the Marche region of central Italy, with a population of around 101,997 . Ancona is the capital of the province of Ancona, homonymous province and of the region. The city is located northeast of Ro ...

, Italy * Museum für angewandte Kunst, Vienna * Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg * Museum of Applied Arts, Leipzig *

, New York * Museum voor Sierkunst en Vormgeving, Gent *

National Gallery of Victoria The National Gallery of Victoria, popularly known as the NGV, is an art museum in Melbourne, Victoria (state), Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is Australia's oldest and list of most visited art museums in the world, most visited art mu ...

, Melbourne *

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) is an List of art museums#North America, art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at ...

, Philadelphia *

Powerhouse Museum The Powerhouse Museum, formerly known as the Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences (MAAS), is a collection of 4 museums in Sydney, owned by the Government of New South Wales. Powerhouse is a contemporary museum of applied arts and sciences, explori ...

(MAAS), Sydney * Shiodome Italia Creative Center, Tokyo * Taideteollisuusmuseo Konstindustrimuseet, Helsinki *

Tel Aviv Museum of Art The Tel Aviv Museum of Art ( ''Muzeon Tel Aviv Leomanut'') is an art museum in Tel Aviv, Israel. The museum is dedicated to the preservation and display of modern and contemporary art both from Israel and around the world. History The Tel Aviv ...

, Tel Aviv * The Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis * Thessaloniki Design Museum, Thessaloniki * Uměleckoprůmyslové Muzeum, Prague *

, London *

Vitra Design Museum The Vitra Design Museum is a privately owned museum for design in Weil am Rhein, Germany. The architect of this building was Frank O. Gehry. His architecture was based on the art movement of the early 20th century, deconstructivism. Making the bu ...

, Weil am Rhein

In popular culture

Sacco often appears in the ''

Peanuts ''Peanuts'' (briefly subtitled ''featuring Good ol' Charlie Brown'') is a print syndication, syndicated daily strip, daily and Sunday strip, Sunday American comic strip written and illustrated by Charles M. Schulz. The strip's original run ext ...

'' comic strips of Charles M. Schulz. The Sacco appears in the 1981 Italian comedy '' Fracchia la belva umana''. Other companies and designers have created products, DIY kits, and homemade versions inspired by the original Sacco.

Bibliography

Paola Antonelli Paola Antonelli (born 1963) is an Italian architect, curator, author, editor, and educator. Antonelli is the Senior Curator of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, where she also serves as the founding Director o ...

(Museum of Modern Art , MOMA)
Sacco Chair , Object Lesson
* Ingrid Halland, ''The unstable object: Glifo, Blow, Sacco at MoMA, 1972, Journal of Design History, Volume 33, Issue 4, December 2020, Pages 329–345, Oxford University Press, https://doi.org/10.1093/jdh/epz051'' * Cindi Strauss,

Germano Celant Germano Celant (11 September 1940 – 29 April 2020) was an Italian art historian, critic, and curator who coined the term "Arte Povera" (poor art) in the 1967 ''Flash Art'' piece "Appunti Per Una Guerriglia" ("Notes on a guerrilla war"), which w ...

, J. Taylor Kubala, RadicalItalian Design 1965–1985The Dennis Freedman Collection, Yale University Press, 2020 * Mel Byars, ''The Design Encyclopedia,'' New York, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1994 * Emilio Ambasz cura di ''Italy: The New Domestic LandscapeAchievements and Problems of Italian Design'', New York, Museum Of Modern Art, 1972 * Margaret Timmers, ''The Way We Live Now: Designs for Interiors 1950 to the Present Day'',

, 1978 * Grace Lees-Maffei, Kjetil Fallan ditors ''Made in Italy Rethinking a Century of Italian Design'', London, Bloomsbury Academic, 2014 * Paola Antonelli, Matilda McQuaid, ''Objects of Design from the Museum of Modern Art'', Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.), 2003 * Bernhard E. Bürdek, ''Design Storia, Teoria e Pratica del Design del Prodotto'', Roma, Gangemi Editore, 2008 * Victoria and Albert Museum. Circulation Department, Whitechapel Art Gallery, ''Modern Chairs 1918–1970'', London: Lund Humphries. 1971 * Victor Papanek, ''Design for the Real World'', New York: 1974 * Moderne Klassiker, ''Mobel, die Geschichte machen'', Hamburg, 1982 * Kathryn B. Hiesinger and George H. Marcus III (eds.), ''Design Since 1945'', Philadelphia,

, 1983 * ''Fifty Chairs that Changed the World: Design Museum Fifty'', London's Design Museum, London, * Charlotte Fiell, Peter Fiell, ''Plastic dreams: synthetic visions in design'', Carlton Books Ltd, 2010, * Anne Bony, ''Design: History, Main Trends, Major Figures'', Larousse/Chambers, 2005 * Bernd Polster, Claudia Newman, Markus Schuler, ''The A–Z of Modern Design'', Merrell Publishers Ltd, 2009, * Domitilla Dardi, ''Il design in cento oggetti,'' Federico Motta Editore, Milano, 2008, * Anty Pansera, ''Il Design del mobile italiano dal 1946 a oggi'', Laterza, 1990 * Charles Boyce, Joseph T. Butler, ''Dictionary of Furniture'', Simon and Schuster, New York, 2014, * Michael Tambini, ''The Look of the Century'', DK Pub., 1999, * AA.VV., ''100 objects of italian design La Triennale di Milano: Permanent Collection of Italian Design, The Milan Triennale,'' Gangemi Editore *

d. preface by

Umberto Eco Umberto Eco (5 January 1932 – 19 February 2016) was an Italian Medieval studies, medievalist, philosopher, Semiotics, semiotician, novelist, cultural critic, and political and social commentator. In English, he is best known for his popular ...

,
The Italian Metamorphosis, 1943–1968
', Guggenheim Museum Publications, New York, 1994, * Fiorella Bulegato, Elena Dellapiana, ''Il design degli architetti italiani 1920–2000'', Mondadori Electa, 2014,

References

{{reflist

External links

Vitra Design Museum
* Paola Antonelli (

)
Sacco Chair , Object Lesson''Italy: The New Domestic Landscape'', Museum Of Modern Art, New York

''The Italian Metamorphosis, 1943–1968,'' Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum'','' New YorkCesare Paolini [architect
Museum Of Modern Art, New York">rchitect">Cesare Paolini [architect
Museum Of Modern Art, New Yorkbr>Franco Teodoro, Museum Of Modern Art, New YorkPiero Gatti, Museum Of Modern Art, New York
Furniture Seats Modernism Products introduced in 1968 History of furniture Italian design Italian inventions Compasso d'Oro Award recipients Individual models of furniture 1960s in Italy Collection of the Museum of Modern Art (New York City)