Vico Magistretti designed the Carimate chair in 1959 for a restaurant and golf club project in Carimate, Lombardy. Its straightforward wooden frame and woven rush seat showed his approach of making modern forms feel usable and familiar. The chair became an early, influential example of his product design work moving from architecture into everyday furniture.
In 1965, Magistretti designed the Eclisse table lamp for Artemide. The lamp’s key idea is a rotating inner shade that can partially block the bulb, letting the user switch between direct and diffused light without complex mechanisms. This focus on simple motion solving a real household need became a hallmark of his lighting designs.
Eclisse went into production in 1967 and quickly gained international visibility. A 1967 example of the lamp is held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection, showing how rapidly it was recognized as design history, not just a commercial product. Its success strengthened Magistretti’s role in shaping postwar Italian lighting for the home.
In 1967, Eclisse received the Compasso d’Oro, one of Italy’s best-known design awards. The award highlighted both the lamp’s clear form and its practical innovation in controlling light output. This recognition helped define Magistretti as a designer who could unite mass production, strong geometry, and daily usability.
In 1968, Magistretti designed the Selene stacking chair, exploring molded plastics as a new industrial material for furniture. The chair was conceived as a single-piece shell (a “monobloc”), aiming for light weight, strength, and easy stacking for flexible spaces. It marked a shift in his work toward materials and processes that could make modern design more widely accessible.
By 1969, Magistretti continued experimenting with plastics in lighting through the Chimera floor lamp. The lamp uses a formed sheet of plastic (often described as plexiglass) to create a tall, softly glowing volume rather than a typical shade-and-bulb layout. It showed how industrial materials could produce warm, domestic light while keeping a clean, sculptural outline.
In 1973, Magistretti designed the Maralunga seating series for Cassina. A key feature is its adjustable backrest, which can change position to support the head and neck, linking comfort to a clear mechanical idea rather than extra ornament. The design helped set a new direction for “relaxed” modern living-room furniture during the 1970s.
In 1977, Magistretti designed the Atollo table lamp for Oluce using a composition of basic geometric forms (cylinder, cone, and hemisphere). The lamp’s structure makes the light feel calm and stable, while the shape reads clearly even from a distance. It became one of his best-known examples of how simple geometry can create a strong “presence” in an interior.
Also in 1977, Magistretti designed the Nuvola Rossa bookcase for Cassina. Its diagonal bracing becomes the main structure, reducing the need for side supports and making the construction easy to “read” visually. Cassina highlights that the bookcase can be folded, showing Magistretti’s interest in space-saving practicality alongside a strong architectural silhouette.
In 1979, Atollo won the Compasso d’Oro ADI, confirming its impact beyond the lighting market. The award helped establish the lamp as a reference point for late-20th-century Italian product design, where strong forms were tied to everyday use. The recognition also strengthened Magistretti’s long-running influence in domestic lighting.
Maralunga received a Compasso d’Oro award in 1979, several years after its 1973 introduction. This award signaled that comfort-focused seating with smart mechanisms could be seen as serious industrial design, not just interior decoration. It also reinforced Magistretti’s ability to create long-lasting products for major Italian manufacturers.
In 1995, Magistretti designed the Maui chair for Kartell as a stackable seat with a polypropylene shell on a steel frame. The design responded to “contract” needs—schools, offices, and public spaces—where chairs must be durable, easy to move, and consistent in large quantities. It shows how his late-career work kept focusing on industrial processes and everyday use rather than one-off statements.
Vico Magistretti's Product Designs (1950–1999)