Cini Boeri – Ghost Chair (1987)

This is the chair with ghost in the name and a very alive soul in the design. In 2013, Cini Boeri (Milano, 1924) stated that she  ‘designed this chair, with its ghostly transparency, at a time when I was terribly tired of designing armchairs and sofas, but that was what everyone was asking me to do. So I said to myself: Let’s make one you can’t see!’ (in https://www.ramonesteve.com/en/la-fabricacion-del-interior/cini-boeri-and-her-ghost-chair/). At the time of this Boeri’s decision, the Japanese architect and designer Tomu Katayanagi was working in her Studio and both designed the Ghost chair. However, since 1987, when the chair was produced by the Italian company Fiam, it cannot remain a more visible piece of furniture.  As a monolithic armchair in 12mm-thick curved glass, it is a statement by itself of a successful outcome over a technological challenge. A single sheet of glass was cut and bent to give form to a comfortable, solid chair (says who already tried it) that is also a sculptural piece of art. Its transparency agrees with all sceneries and styles but it is not possible to declare that it stays unnoticed.

Author: Fátima Pombo

Photo: Cini Boeri seated in her Ghost armchair, 2006.

https://www.core77.com/posts/48413/Cini-Boeris-Odes-to-Joy