Part of the new exhibition, 4 April 2025 – 12 April 2026.
The Selene chair is the best-known product designed by Magistretti while working with the furniture and lighting manufacturer Artemide. This is one of several collaborations between designers and manufacturers experimenting with the technological and expressive potential of plastic in 1960s Italy which helped to transform plastic’s image from a material used for cheap imitations to one used for products of a desirable elegance.
Magistretti conceived the idea for the chair in 1961. The lengthy period between conception and production (which started in 1969) is due to the complex S-shaped profile of the chair’s legs, which provides the necessary tensile strength and proved challenging. Together with specialist technicians the very first chair to be made entirely from a single sheet of thermo-hardening plastic with a thickness of only three millimetres was created.
Nevertheless, comfort was a key aspect: the chair’s seat and back, which have been moulded into concave curves envelop the sitter and ensure a high level of comfort. The Selene was first shown as a prototype at the 1968 Triennale di Milano. In 1970, the chair was nominated for a Compasso d’Oro, in recognition of not just its aesthetic but also the manufacturing possibilities it represented: It only took five minutes to manufacture one Selene chair in a mould produced in-house at Artemide’s factory.
Text: Catherine Rossi. Via Vitra Design Museum
Photos: Studio Hans Hansen, © Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg © Fondazione Vico Magistretti
Design is fine. History is mine. 