Gaetano Pesce is an important Italian designer born in 1939. He studied architecture and lived in several places including Italy, London, Paris, and New York, broadening his perspectives. Pesce prefers innovative materials like plastics and foams over traditional ones, allowing greater flexibility in color and shaping. He designed furniture but also architecture, shoes, and jewelry. Pesce was inspired by Renaissance artists and Pop Art, aiming to make furniture universal and modern rather than tied to function or culture. He introduced new perspectives on gender and material innovation that remain influential today.

1. Bilkent University / Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture
IAED 463 History of Furniture / Section 01
Spring 2017
Instructor : Elif Erdemir Türkkan
Student : Serra Koz,---,---
Gaetamo Pesce
“Art was always a product.” - Gaetano Pesce
Gaetamo Pesce is one of the most important designers of the 21st
century who born at
La Spezia, Italy, in 1939. He graduated from University of Venice, Faculty of Architecture. He
lived lots of places such as Padova, Venice, London, Helsinki, Paris, New York which broaden
his horizon in many perspectives. His international approach to design fields is stem from the
living different places and observing different cultures. That is the reason why his designs are
not only for his hometown (Italy), but also for the whole countries. Actually, changing place is
beneficial for the movement he belongs, which is mainly modernism but it can be changed
according to what he wants to design- e.g. postmodernism-. He want to create furniture
which everybody can easily reach and use without any cultural or historical background of
any countries or time. In other words, he blurred some of the borders (cultural and regional)
in designs field by the help of movement that he belongs and the places he lived by using his
personal approach.
For the Pesche’s point of view, we can say that he prefers to use new technology
materials (in other words innovative building materials) like polyurethane foams, resin, plastic
and leakage rather than traditional materials. In traditional materials, we have a limit to
design because of the limits of traditional materials in respect to color and giving shape to
the material. The new technological materials have huge advantages in the design field since
their colors can be varied and materials can be shaped easily so that Pesce can use different
colors with different forms. In this respect, we can say that his main and most important
contribution to the design field is the material wise, which can be developed by the future
designer in soon.
He has not designed only furniture pieces but also some architectural drawings and
workings, shoes, and jewelries. The works of Pesce have been exhibiting at permanent
collections in museums in France, Italy, Portugal, England and the USA. His inspiration is from
the Renaissance artists, especially Leonardo Da Vinci and Raphael; furthermore, he combined
art and design and mentioned that there is no difference between art and design. That’s the
reason why he named his works as an art making performance. Although his inspiration
comes from Renaissance artists, he takes inspiration from Pop Art artists as well. (Andy
Warhol, Marcel Duchamp) Basically, we can say that he creates a design which is not only
modernist but also has some impact from the Renaissance times. He analyzes the historical

2. examples of furniture pieces very well and creates an innovative design considering the
difference between past and today. This notion is also very beneficial to the design field since
we can also design a furniture pieces by looking at the previous examples but renovate it
today’s conditions.
As it is mentioned from the preceding paragraph, Pesche designed his furniture types
by the help of Pop Art and also Post-Modernism. The shapes and the dimensions of the
furniture pieces varies, most of them do not satisfies a proper human dimension because of
the principle of post-modernism; “design should not follow the function”. In this respect, he
spends his creation to design objects which have meanings before the function. In addition to
that, meanings of these objects and furniture pieces include the value of those time periods.
He criticizes facts such as feminism and humanism by the help of design and art. He
designed furniture piece called La Mama for taking the attention on feminism. For achieving
this purpose, he used compressed and vacuum packed in PVC wrappers (it is also a kind of
new technology material). This iconic design furniture is an abstraction of a female figure. It is
very simple designed furniture because of the meaning of the furniture. Essentially, what is
important is the fact that he combines both the design principle (modernism principles) and
different types of philosophies (feminism and humanism) into the furniture pieces.
Finally, what he has done is very crucial in the sense of future design of the furniture
because he introduced new materials to the furniture-making market. Also, he consider some
other factors such as using the art and design together without considering any background
which makes the furniture pieces universal. For that reason, analyzing Pesce’s works might
help to develop the furniture design in future because his approach to the design is very
universal and modernistic way.

3. REFERENCES
Benda, Friedman. «Gaetano Pesce» www.friedmanbenda.com
Bartolucci, Marisa. Gaetano Pesce: Compact Design Portfolio. San Francisco.
Chronicle Books, (2003).
Cohen, Edie. “Gaetano Pesce.” Interior Design 77.
Cotoranu, Alex. Gaetano Pesce: Ideas and
Innovation. www.sfu.ca/italiadesign/2008/…/GaetanoPesce_AlexCotoranu.pdf. (2008).
“Gaetano Pesce”. Gaetano Pesce. www.gaetanopesce.com/
“Gaetano Pesce”. Designboom.
www.designboom.com/eng/interview/ pesce.html. (2000).
Govannini, J. “Gaetano Pesce: 'One-of-a-Kind Iconic Works, 1967-2015' ” The New
York Times, Art & Design. www.nytimes.com/2015/03/27/arts/design/gaetano-pesce-
one-of-a-kind-iconic-works-1967-2015.html?_r=0. (2005).
Vanlaethem, France. Gaetano Pesce: Architecture, Design, Art. London: Thames
and Hudson, (c1989).
Thornton, Beatrice. "Gaetano Pesce and Karim Rashid at the 92Y." Modern
Magazine.