Zanotta Maggiolina

The process that led to the creation of the Maggiolina lounge chair could aptly be described in the words of Aurelio Zanotta: 'a Cinderella transformed into a princess.' Starting from the idea of an affordable, demountable armchair, this work was created under the design direction of Marco Zanuso towards the end of the 1940s in response to a competition held by MoMA in New York. The structural basis of this lounge chair consisted of bent steel tubes from which hung a jute sack containing compartments housing two plywood panels. These panels acted as support for the two upholstered cushions that served as seat and backrest. During the creation of the Maggiolina lounge chair in 1947, Zanuso tested an innovative construction approach developed specifically for serial industrial production. In doing so, he broke with the traditional framework of making an armchair using craft techniques.