Midcentury "Platone" White Folding Desk By Giancarlo Piretti For Castelli, 1970s
Roma, Italy
£1,526 per item
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Item details
Height
69.0 cm
Width
82.0 cm
Depth
64.0 cm
Wear conditions
Good
Wear conditions
Excellent
Shows little to no signs of wear and tear.
Good
May show slight traces of use in keeping with age. Most vintage and antique items fit into this condition.
Average
Likely to show signs of some light scratching and ageing but still remains in a fair condition.
Apparent Wear and Tear
Visible signs of previous use including scratches, chips or stains.
Please refer to condition report, images or make a seller enquiry for additional information.
Description
Lovely white "Platone" folding desk. Designed by the visionary Giancarlo Piretti and produced by Anonima Castelli in Italy during the 1970s. The desk is signed on the bottom.
In brand new condition, this desk has never been used and is a new old stock.
The Platone desk was designed to be presented as a set with the Plia chair. It is also held in the permanent collection of the MoMa in NYC. Its ingenious three-disc mechanism, a signature feature of Piretti’s bestsellers, reaches its boldest expression in the Platone.
The white top is a perfect match with the bold design of this little table, with the metal structure sustaining the table on one side. Platone is built to last and integrates seamlessly into any modern or vintage interior.
This stylish desk could function perfectly in a modern or midcentury style children's room or office.
Dimension (cm):
Width - 82
Depth - 64
Height - 69
Italian interior and industrial designer Giancarlo Piretti was born in 1940 in Bologna. He obtained his teaching degree in drawing at the Art Institute of Bologna (dates unknown), and continued his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna in 1960. From 1963 until 1970, he taught interior design at the Art Institute of Bologna.
Sometime in the 1960s, Piretti also joined Italian design company Castelli as an interior designer, creating home furniture and office furnishings. During his twelve years at Castelli, Piretti obtained numerous industrial patents for his designs, which were mostly chairs. Piretti’s work for Castelli garnered the company an international reputation in furniture design. His most well-known design is the plastic folding Plia Chair (1968), which has sold over seven million copies since 1969 and is still in production. It won the BIO 5 distinction and the SMAU prize at the Ljubljana Biennial in 1971, Germany’s Gute Form prize in 1973, and can be found in permanent collections in various museums world-wide, including Austria, Czech Republic, Slovenia and the United States. In 1969 the complementary Plia Table was equally well-received in design circles, these revolutionary designs measured just 5 cm in depth when folded, a marvel in the 1960s.
In the late 1970s, Piretti worked with Argentine architect-designer Emilio Ambasz (b. 1943) on several award-winning designs, including the two ergonomic seating systems Vertebra (1975, winner of the Smau Industrial Design Award in 1979) and Dorsal (1981). From 1984-1986 Piretti worked for Castilia, a firm that was part of the Castelli group, that specialized in the production of home furniture characterized by functional and aesthetic systems.
In 1988, Piretti revealed The Piretti Collection in Chicago, which included over 50 different office chairs and seating styles. It is still manufactured by various licensees around the world. The collection, which has won several prizes including the UBD, the ASID, the Compasso d'Oro and the G-Mark, was designed to respond to the specific needs of each individual user. In 1997, the collection reached the milestone of one million chairs sold. Today, they have sold more than two-and-a-half million pieces from the collection.
Other well-known design include the DCS 106 stacking chair (1965); Plona lounge chair (1969); Alky chair (1970s); Plantone Folding desk (1970); Plano (1971, Gold Medal IBD); Planto coat rack (1972); the system 61 modular sofa system (1973); Xylon Chair (1992, two G Mark Awards 1994); and the Torsion seating collection (1995-6, G Mark Award 1997).
Today, Piretti lives and works in Bologna with his son, designer Alessandro Piretti.
Anonima Castelli was established in 1877 by Ettore Castelli as a cabinetry workshop. Following a gradual change over the years, between the 1960s and 1980s the company started one of the most enterprising and innovative projects in the world, working together with leading figures of Italian and international design:
emilio ambasz, rodolfo bonetto, nilo gioacchini, giancarlo piretti , charles pollock, f.a. porsche, richard sapper, claudio bellini, michele de lucchi, doriana and massimiliano fuksas, gino gamberini, enzo mari and mario ruiz. The company's products soon became iconic and were chosen to furnish important presidential offices of banks and large industries.
Condition report:
Excellent
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Cancellations and Returns
Last updated: 24th March 2025
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