Bean bag chair

The Sacco chair, also known as a bean bag chair, beanbag chair, or simply a beanbag is a large fabric bag filled with polystyrene beans. It was designed by Piero Gatti, Cesare Paolini and Franco Teodoro in 1968. "Sacco" is Italian for "bag, sack". The product is an example of an anatomic chair, as the shape of the object is set by the user.

The Sacco 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,” as Penny Spark wrote in Italian Design – 1870 to the Present.

Sacco was awarded the XXVI Premio Compasso d'Oro and is exhibited in the collections of some of the most important contemporary art museums throughout the world.

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 of Turin.

Piero Gatti, Cesare Paolini, and Franco Teodoro established their architecture firm in Turin in 1965.

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 technology. 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 process.

The designer was an integral member of a process that included marketing as well as engineering. The inspiration left by Corradino D’Ascano's Vespa design for the Piaggio Corporation in 1946 added value to the essence of the designer. With successful designs, brands could sell more products, and therefore the identity of the designer played an important advertising role.

Another important figure of the Italian modernism period was Gio Ponti. Inspired by modernism's art movements, Ponti created new forms of objects. His asymmetrically balanced designs freed the Italian objects from their classic representations. The designer promoted Italian designs on famous exhibitions called 'Milan Triennale': "These exhibitions, organized as early as the 1920s… were responsible for increasing the visibility of Italian design in an international setting". After becoming an editor of the Domus (magazine) in 1947, Ponti contributed to Italian design of that time, but also: "the human and creative element in modern industrial design as well as its practical, economic and social benefits." 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 of not being able to sustain its form and never reached production. Sacco addressed that flaw with the use of leather for the exterior and right placed stitching. The use of leather was not coincidental, as at that time the textile was an Italian national pride product. The target user of the chair was the lax, hippie community and their non-conformist household. "In an era characterized by the hippie culture, apartment sharing and student demonstrations, the thirty-something designers created a nonpoltrona (non-chair) and thus launched an attack on good bourgeois taste."

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, 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 Landscape - Achievements and Problems of Italian Design and was awarded, in 1973, the BIO 5 at the Biennale of Design in Ljubljana. In 2020 Sacco received the prestigious Compasso d'Oro Award.

Exhibitions

 * Museum of Modern Art, New York: Recent Acquisitions: Design Collection, 1 December 1970, 31 January 1971
 * Museum of Modern Art, New York: Italy: The New Domestic Landscape, 26 May - 11 September 1972
 * Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The Italian Metamorphosis,1943-1968, 7 October 1994—22 January 1995 [ Triennale di Milano February—May 1995, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg May—September 1995]
 * Museum of Modern Art, New York: Architecture and Design: Inaugural Installation, 20 November 2004 - 7 November 2005
 * Kanal — Centre Pompidou, Brussels: Phantom offices, 23 January - 30 June 2019
 * Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine, Paris: Architects' Furniture: 1960–2020, September 2019
 * Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain de Saint-Étienne, Saint-Priest-en-Jarez: Déjà-vu. Le design dans notre quotidien, 15 December 2020 - 22 August 2021

Collections

 * Museum of Modern Art, New York
 * Israel Museum, Jerusalem
 * Uměleckoprůmyslové Muzeum, Prague
 * Kunstgewerbemuseum, Berlin
 * Victoria and Albert Museum, London
 * Musée National d'Art Moderne (Centre Pompidou), Paris
 * Kunstmuseum, Düsseldorf
 * Museum für angewandte Kunst, Vienna
 * Taideteollisuusmuseo Konstindustrimuseet, Helsinki
 * Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris
 * The Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis
 * Museo dell'arredo contemporaneo, Russi (Ra)
 * Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg
 * Denver Art Museum, Denver
 * Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas
 * Fondazione Triennale Design Museum, Milan
 * Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv
 * Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein
 * Thessaloniki Design Museum, Thessaloniki
 * Brücke-Museum, Berlin
 * Fonds Régional d'Art Contemporain, Dunkerque
 * Centro Arte e Design, Calenzano
 * Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney
 * Museum voor Sierkunst en Vormgeving, Gent
 * Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia
 * Shiodome Italia Creative Center, Tokyo
 * Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain de Saint-Étienne, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
 * National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Awards

 * 1968 M.I.A.- Mostra Internazionale dell'Arredamento, Monza
 * 1973 Bio 5 Ljubljana, Biennale of Design Ljubljana
 * 2020 XXVI Compasso d'Oro Award (Selected for the 1970 Compasso d'Oro but not awarded)

In popular culture
Sacco often appears in the strips Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz.

Other bean bag chair products inspired by Sacco
Other designers have followed the "shapeless" chair design, creating a range of inspired products that take after Sacco. Amongst many, the most successful contemporary model would be Jukka Setala's Fatboy. The product launched in 2002 brought the Finnish designer global recognition. The new form of the bean bag chair has less stitching and a more geometrical take in the means of shape. It also has an EPS filling which is more durable than PVC.