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Poltrona FrauA Monograph

Chapter Three

The hands behind the house

A house that works to order needs people willing to argue with it. These are the designers and studios whose drawings became part of the catalogue.

Contributors
Eight profiles
Span
1912 to the present
Disciplines
Design, architecture, direction
Roster
The house lists 77 in all

Explore by style

8 of 8 contributors.

  • Renzo Frau

    Italy — Founder

    Registered the trademark in Turin in 1912 and established the buttoned armchair as the company's central object.

    Biography

  • Savina Pisati

    Italy — Proprietor and director

    Ran the company through the First World War and again from 1926, and put model 904 into production in 1930.

    Biography

  • Gio Ponti

    Italy — Architect and designer

    Designed Dezza in 1965, the first product of the Tolentino era and the start of the house's work with outside architects.

    Biography

  • Achille & Pier Giacomo Castiglioni

    Italy — Architects and designers

    Designed Sanluca, an armchair of three formally independent parts that Poltrona Frau now produces.

    Biography

  • Ferdinand Alexander Porsche

    Germany — Industrial designer

    Designed Antropovarius in 1982, an ergonomic lounge chair built around an articulated artificial spine.

    Biography

  • Lella & Massimo Vignelli

    Italy and United States — Designers

    Brought a rigorously reductive discipline to the catalogue, including Intervista and the Mesa tables.

    Biography

  • Jean-Marie Massaud

    France — Designer and architect

    The most prolific living contributor, author of Archibald, Kennedee, GranTorino and John-John.

    Biography

  • Neri&Hu

    China — Architecture and design studio

    Created the Ren collection, a family of walnut and leather objects scaled to the body rather than the room.

    Biography