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.

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