Kartell Furniture and Lighting: Icons of Italian Design
Kartell creates modern Italian furniture, lighting, storage, and accessories distinguished by color, transparency, technological innovation, and instantly recognizable design. Since 1949, the company has transformed industrial materials into expressive objects for contemporary life.
The Kartell collection includes dining chairs, lounge seating, tables, stools, storage systems, bookcases, lighting, outdoor furniture, and decorative accessories. From the transparent Louis Ghost Chair to the modular Componibili cabinet, these designs combine practical function with a playful and sophisticated visual identity.
Italian Design Since 1949
Kartell was founded in Milan in 1949 by chemical engineer Giulio Castelli. From its earliest years, the company explored how industrial production and emerging materials could create useful, beautiful, and accessible objects.
Anna Castelli Ferrieri—an architect, designer, and important creative figure within the company—helped shape Kartell’s modern identity. Her work demonstrated that industrial materials could produce furniture with architectural clarity, strong color, and lasting cultural relevance.
The company entered a new period in 1988 under Claudio Luti, who brought experience from the fashion industry and expanded Kartell’s relationships with internationally recognized architects and designers. These collaborations helped transform the brand into a global expression of contemporary Italian design.
Transforming Plastic into Design
Kartell changed perceptions of plastic by treating it as a sophisticated design material rather than an inexpensive substitute. Research into molding, pigmentation, transparency, texture, and structural performance made forms possible that would have been difficult to create using conventional furniture materials.
Plastic allows curves, complex surfaces, and integrated structures to be produced with exceptional consistency. Kartell has used these qualities to develop furniture that is lightweight, durable, colorful, and visually distinctive.
The company’s expertise extends beyond a single polymer. Different materials are selected according to the structural, optical, tactile, and environmental requirements of each product.
The Innovation of Transparent Furniture
After years of research, Kartell became the first company to use polycarbonate for furnishing products in 1999. La Marie, designed by Philippe Starck, was the first result: a completely transparent chair with a simple, modern silhouette.
This breakthrough opened a new chapter in furniture design. Polycarbonate made it possible to create seating that was visually light yet structurally strong. Transparent furniture could occupy a room without interrupting sightlines or competing heavily with surrounding architecture.
Kartell continued to explore transparency through different forms, colors, textures, and surface effects. This research led to some of the company’s most iconic designs and established transparency as a defining element of the Kartell identity.
The Kartell Louis Ghost Chair
Designed by Philippe Starck, the Louis Ghost Chair reinterprets the form of a traditional Louis XV armchair through transparent polycarbonate. Its rounded back, curved arms, and historic proportions are reduced to a single contemporary molded form.
The contrast between classical reference and modern material gives Louis Ghost its distinctive character. It can feel elegant, playful, understated, or dramatic depending on the color and surrounding interior.
The chair is lightweight, durable, and stackable, making it suitable for dining rooms, workspaces, event settings, hospitality projects, and covered outdoor areas. Its transparent version is especially useful where visual openness is important.
Kartell Masters Chair
The Masters Chair, designed by Philippe Starck with Eugeni Quitllet, pays tribute to three influential modern chairs. The outlines of classic designs by Arne Jacobsen, Charles and Ray Eames, and Eero Saarinen intersect to create the chair’s distinctive backrest.
Rather than reproducing any single historic form, Masters layers these references into an original contemporary silhouette. The interwoven back provides visual interest while supporting the body.
Available in a range of colors and finishes, the Masters Chair works in dining rooms, kitchens, restaurants, offices, and outdoor environments. Its sculptural profile remains recognizable from every angle.
Kartell Componibili Storage
Designed by Anna Castelli Ferrieri, Componibili is one of Kartell’s most enduring designs. The compact modular storage system uses cylindrical forms and sliding doors to create useful storage with a clean architectural presence.
Individual units can function as bedside tables, bathroom storage, side tables, office organizers, or small cabinets. Their rounded shape fits easily into corners and compact spaces, while the sliding doors eliminate the clearance required by conventional hinged cabinets.
Componibili is available in multiple sizes, colors, and material versions. Its continued relevance demonstrates Kartell’s ability to combine industrial efficiency, practical function, and timeless form.
Kartell Dining Chairs
Kartell dining chairs range from transparent icons to richly colored contemporary seating. Molded construction allows the company to create expressive backs, slender legs, curved shells, and integrated details while maintaining strength and ease of use.
Some designs make a bold visual statement through pattern and color. Others appear light and almost invisible, allowing tables, artwork, and architecture to remain dominant.
Many chairs are stackable or suitable for exterior use, making them practical for homes, restaurants, cafés, conference rooms, and event settings. Upholstered and mixed-material options provide additional comfort and variety.
Lounge Chairs, Armchairs, and Sofas
Kartell’s upholstered furniture brings softness and comfort to a brand historically associated with molded materials. Lounge chairs, armchairs, sofas, and ottomans combine carefully developed cushioning with distinctive frames and silhouettes.
The collection ranges from compact accent chairs to larger seating systems for living rooms, lounges, and hospitality spaces. Fabrics, leathers, and technical textiles expand the material vocabulary while preserving Kartell’s recognizable sense of color and form.
These designs can be paired with transparent tables, sculptural lighting, and storage pieces to create complete interiors with both visual energy and comfort.
Kartell Tables and Desks
Kartell tables include dining tables, coffee tables, side tables, bar tables, consoles, and desks. Transparent polymers, metal, glass, stone effects, and wood may be used individually or combined to create contrasting surfaces and structures.
Clear tables maintain an open visual field and can make compact rooms feel less crowded. Colored and reflective designs provide a stronger focal point, while wood collections introduce natural warmth.
The range includes pieces suitable for dining, working, entertaining, and outdoor living. Different dimensions and finishes allow tables to be selected for private residences, workplaces, restaurants, hotels, and public interiors.
Kartell Lighting
Kartell lighting applies the company’s material expertise to table lamps, floor lamps, pendant lights, wall fixtures, and ceiling lights. Transparent and translucent shades manipulate reflection and refraction, while molded surfaces create intricate patterns of light.
Some lamps reinterpret traditional decorative forms through contemporary materials. Others use minimal geometries and integrated LED technology to produce efficient, atmospheric illumination.
Color plays an important role throughout the lighting collection. Clear finishes emphasize luminosity and visual lightness, while saturated tones allow a fixture to function as a decorative accent even when switched off.
The Bourgie Lamp
Designed by Ferruccio Laviani, Bourgie combines a classically inspired base with a pleated baroque-style shade. Produced in modern transparent or colored material, it balances ornament, irony, and technological production.
The lamp’s decorative silhouette makes it immediately recognizable. Its adjustable height allows Bourgie to serve as a table lamp, desk lamp, bedside light, or low floor lamp depending on the configuration.
Bourgie demonstrates a recurring Kartell theme: historical forms can be reinterpreted through new materials and manufacturing techniques without losing their emotional appeal.
FL/Y and Contemporary Pendant Lighting
The FL/Y pendant, designed by Ferruccio Laviani, uses a simple hemispherical form to create broad, functional illumination. Its transparent or colored shade catches light along the curved surface, giving the fixture depth and luminosity.
Suspended individually, FL/Y works over a dining table, kitchen island, or compact seating area. Multiple pendants can be arranged in groups to create larger compositions for residential and commercial spaces.
Kartell’s broader pendant collection includes both restrained and highly decorative designs, allowing lighting to support the architecture or become the room’s primary focal point.
Portable and Rechargeable Lamps
Kartell portable lamps bring flexible illumination to dining tables, bedside areas, shelving, terraces, and hospitality settings. Rechargeable designs can be moved without the limitations of a visible power cord.
Compact proportions and carefully controlled light make these lamps useful for intimate settings. They can add a warm pool of illumination to a table, provide a gentle nighttime light, or support outdoor entertaining.
A wide choice of colors and finishes allows portable lighting to coordinate with Kartell furniture or introduce a contrasting accent.
Kartell Outdoor Furniture
Kartell offers chairs, tables, lounge seating, lighting, and accessories designed for terraces, balconies, gardens, pool areas, and hospitality environments. Many molded materials are naturally well suited to exterior applications because they are lightweight and easy to maintain.
Outdoor designs retain the same visual character as the indoor collection. Transparent seating can preserve views, while colored chairs and tables bring energy to exterior spaces.
Because product suitability varies, the specific material, finish, exposure, and maintenance requirements should be reviewed when selecting Kartell furniture for outdoor use.
Accessories for Every Room
Kartell accessories extend the company’s design language into nearly every area of the home. The collection includes mirrors, clocks, magazine racks, trays, vases, baskets, coat stands, tableware, bathroom accessories, and decorative objects.
These smaller pieces offer an easy way to introduce Kartell’s color, transparency, and playful forms into an existing interior. A single accessory can act as a vivid accent, while coordinated objects can create a more complete visual statement.
Their practical character also reflects Kartell’s original mission: to use intelligent industrial design to improve ordinary daily activities.
Kartell for Home Offices and Workspaces
Kartell desks, task seating, storage, lighting, and accessories can create workspaces that feel functional without becoming visually institutional. Transparent materials and compact forms are especially effective in home offices and shared living environments.
Swivel chairs and adjustable seating support focused work, while Componibili units and modular storage keep supplies organized. Table and task lamps provide localized illumination, and decorative accessories add personality.
For professional offices, meeting areas, and reception spaces, Kartell furniture can introduce color and character while meeting practical requirements for mobility, durability, and maintenance.
International Designer Collaborations
Kartell has collaborated with many of the world’s leading architects and designers. Its creative network includes Philippe Starck, Antonio Citterio, Ferruccio Laviani, Piero Lissoni, Patricia Urquiola, Ron Arad, Mario Bellini, Vico Magistretti, Tokujin Yoshioka, Eugeni Quitllet, and Alberto Meda.
These designers bring different approaches to form, technology, comfort, and culture. Kartell’s research and manufacturing expertise enables their ideas to be translated into products at an industrial scale.
The diversity of these collaborations keeps the collection evolving while maintaining a clear connection to innovation, expressive materials, and contemporary Italian design.
Kartell Loves the Planet
Kartell’s sustainability program, Kartell Loves the Planet, brings environmental considerations into material development, production, packaging, logistics, and product longevity.
The company increasingly uses recycled and renewable materials where technical performance allows. Selected designs have been developed using recycled industrial material, bio-based polymers, and other material innovations intended to reduce dependence on virgin resources.
Durability remains an important part of this approach. A product that performs well, remains visually relevant, and can stay in use for many years avoids the culture of disposable furnishings.
Recycled and Bio-Based Materials
Kartell’s knowledge of polymers enables it to explore alternative material sources without abandoning the qualities required for furniture. Research focuses on maintaining strength, color consistency, surface quality, and recyclability.
The bio-based version of Componibili, for example, uses a material derived partly from renewable agricultural sources. Other collections incorporate recycled thermoplastic material generated from industrial production.
These developments show how environmental responsibility can become part of the design process rather than an aesthetic afterthought.
Furniture for Residential and Contract Interiors
Kartell products are specified for private residences, offices, restaurants, hotels, retail spaces, cultural environments, and other commercial projects. Their combination of visual identity and practical performance makes them suitable for many types of interiors.
Lightweight and stackable chairs support flexible layouts. Transparent furniture preserves architectural sightlines. Portable lighting helps create atmosphere without permanent installation, while modular storage brings organization to compact spaces.
The breadth of the collection allows designers to use Kartell as a distinctive accent or develop a more complete furnishing concept across several areas.
Color, Transparency, and Personal Expression
Kartell furniture is available in an extensive palette ranging from clear and neutral tones to deep, saturated colors. Finish can significantly change the character of a design.
A transparent chair may appear quiet and architectural, while the same form in an opaque color becomes graphic and expressive. Metallic finishes introduce glamour, and matte surfaces create a softer contemporary effect.
This variety gives homeowners and designers the freedom to tailor familiar Kartell forms to highly individual interiors.
Discover Kartell at Scott + Cooner
Explore Kartell furniture and lighting at Scott + Cooner and discover icons of Italian design shaped by more than seven decades of material research and creative collaboration.
Our team works with homeowners, architects, and interior designers to select Kartell chairs, tables, lighting, storage, outdoor furniture, and accessories for residential and commercial projects. We can assist with product selection, colors, finishes, dimensions, technical details, and special orders.
Contact Scott + Cooner or visit one of our showrooms to experience Kartell’s distinctive combination of innovation, transparency, color, and Made in Italy design.