bean bag chair

The design features a large pear-shaped bag or sack (sacco) made of leather or fabric and filled with expanded polystyrene foam pellets (beans) or a similar material. It is an example of anatomic design, as the user's body determines its form. 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, the Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the ADI Design Museum in Milan.

• Name — Sacco • Designer — Piero Gatti, Cesare Paolini, Franco Teodoro • Made In — Italy • Date — 1968 • Materials — Leather or textile (shell), expanded polystyrene (filling) • Style — Italian Radical design • Sold By — Zanotta S.p.A. • Collection — ADI Design Museum, Centre Pompidou, Museum of Modern Art, Victoria and Albert Museum, et al.

Sacco was introduced in 1968 by Italian designers Piero Gatti, Cesare Paolini, and Franco Teodoro. Their work came out of the Radical period of the Italian modernist movement and was highly inspired by newly available materials and technologies. Post-war technology enabled increased production by introducing new materials, such as polystyrene. The idea of mass-produced goods at affordable prices 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. • Illustration — From left to right, Franco Teodoro, Cesare Paolini and Piero Gatti, creator of Sacco, in Paris in 1969 Piero Gatti, Cesare Paolini, and Franco Teodoro, inspired by their designer predecessors, developed Sacco, the "shapeless chair" in 1968. Although it was not the first amorphous chair design in Italian history, Sacco was the first successful product created in partnership with Zanotta. The product's predecessor 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 the time. The target user for the chair was the hippie community, whose nonconformist values aligned with the chair's unconventional design. Sacco is part of the permanent collections of some of the most important museums of contemporary art worldwide, 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."

The bean bag chair has been prominently featured in several exhibitions, highlighting its significance in 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, and subsequently traveled to the Triennale di Milano (February–May 1995) and the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg (May–September 1995). 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 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.

• Illustration — Franco Teodoro reclining comfortably on a Sacco chair 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.