SURROUNDING LIGHTING

• Kartell Furniture Index

Kartell was founded in Milan in 1949 by chemical engineer Giulio Castelli with the conviction that industrial polymer technology could produce objects of lasting aesthetic and cultural value. The company's history is a series of manufacturing firsts: the first injection-moulded plastic storage unit (Anna Castelli Ferrieri's Componibili, 1969); the first chair produced from a single polycarbonate mould; Philippe Starck's Louis Ghost (2002), which reinterpreted a Louis XVI fauteuil in transparent polycarbonate and became one of the most sold chairs in design history. The Masters chair by Philippe Starck (2009) layers the silhouettes of the Eames DSR, Saarinen Tulip and Jacobsen Series 7 into a single polycarbonate shell - a piece of design history that is also a piece of design commentary.