Get a curated collection of design and architecture news in your inbox by signing up to our ICON Weekly newsletter
Shadow, designed by Italian architect and design pioneer Gaetano Pesce for Meritalia, is an armchair that adapts to the body that sits on it
Photography courtesy of Meritalia
Following La Michetta, Italian design brand Meritalia continues revealing iconic pieces from its historical catalogue with the re-launch of the Shadow armchair. Originally designed by Italian architect and design pioneer Gaetano Pesce, who also chose the name, the chair is a post-modern icon of design that’s highly coveted among collectors.
Since its foundation in 1987, Meritalia has been propelled by a sense of freedom that distinguishes its intrinsic pop-modernism: not just an intellectual stance criticising stability and celebrating heterogeneity, but generating an exciting range of everyday objects.
Designed and made in limited numbers in 2007, Shadow is formed from pouring polyurethane resin into the bag-like vinyl upholstery it then sets and hardens around the negative space of a person sitting, creating a comfortable seat. ‘The Shadow armchair grows in a radically unregulated way and changes in relation only to the body it mimics,’ shares Meritalia in a statement.
Photography courtesy of Meritalia
‘Sitting on Shadow means letting yourself be enveloped by a shape and at the same time imprinting that of your own body – it is an armchair that has memory, capable of keeping track of the experience of using it,’ says Meritalia.
A rare classic, Shadow is upholstered in a contemporary high gloss latex-like material with leather accents. The piece works in both classical style and modern interiors, as well as industrial spaces or in hotel lobbies. Rejecting the symmetry – and boredom – of the traditional rooms, Meritalia continues to reinvent ordinary objects, from the sofa to the coffee table, from the chair to the armchair, turning them from mundane objects into extraordinary icons.
Over the years, numerous architects and designers have contributed to the evolution of Meritalia, including Mario Bellini, Achille and Piergiacomo Castiglioni, Carlo Contin, as well as Fabio Novembre, Gaetano Pesce, and Carlo Scarpa, to name a few. Since 2023, together with Gufram and Memphis, Meritalia is now part of the Italian Radical Design Group, chaired by Sandra and Charley Vezza.