Bean bag chair


The Sacco chair, is a large pear-shaped bag or sack made of leather or fabric and filled with expanded polystyrene foam pellets or a similar material. It is an example of anatomic design, as the user's body determines its form. The Sacco chair was designed by Piero Gatti, Cesare Paolini and Franco Teodoro 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, and is in the collections of many museums, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and ADI Design Museum in Milan.

History

Sacco was introduced in 1968 by three Italian designers: Piero Gatti, Cesare Paolini, and. The object was created during the Radical period of the Italian modernist movement, and was highly inspired by newly available materials and technologies. Post-war technology enabled an increase in production processes by introducing new materials, such as polystyrene. The idea of mass-produced goods at an affordable price range appealed to consumers. This, in turn, 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. Franco Teodoro and Piero Gatti, the designers, studied at the Istituto Tecnico Industriale Statale per le Arti Grafiche e Fotografiche in Turin. They established their architecture firm in Turin 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 significant 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 it was a product of national pride in Italy at that time. 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 Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Victoria and Albert Museum 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, 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 jury, failing to win the 1970 award, the Sacco chair received the Compasso d'Oro Award and was added to the collection of the ADI Design Museum in Milan.

Exhibitions

The bean bag chair has been prominently featured in several exhibitions, highlighting its significance in the realm of design and art history. At the Museum of Modern Art, New York, 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 in The Italian Metamorphosis, 1943–1968, from 7 October 1994 to 22 January 1995, which subsequently traveled to the Triennale di Milano and Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg.
The Museum of Modern Art, New York 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 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

In popular culture

Sacco often appears in the Peanuts comic strips of Charles M. Schulz.
The Italian actor Paolo Villaggio uses the Sacco as a comedy sight gag in the 1981 Italian comedy Fracchia la belva umana by Neri Parenti.
Other companies and designers have created products, DIY kits, and homemade versions inspired by the original Sacco.