Paolo Pallucco

In the 1980s, Paolo Pallucco emerged as a pioneering figure in contemporary furniture design, though his initial impact came from reviving early modernist classics. Born in Rome in 1950 and trained as an architect, he brought forgotten icons like the Fortuny floor lamp, Robert Mallet-Stevens' 222 chair, and René Herbst’s Sandows chair back into production. However, his ambitions extended beyond reproduction—Pallucco was drawn to the idea of furniture as a platform for artistic exploration.


This creative shift gained momentum when he began designing original pieces, often in collaboration with his then-wife Mireille Rivier. While Rivier grounded his more radical impulses, Pallucco’s partnerships extended to influential figures such as Comme des Garçons founder Rei Kawakubo. As design expert Boris Bourdet notes¹, "I think that Paolo Pallucco always had a strong interested in design, but after reissuing design classics he met Rei Kawakubo and started producing her furniture for Comme des Garçons.“ This marked his full transition into contemporary design.


For Pallucco, furniture was more than function—it was a conceptual statement. His designs often featured industrial materials and exaggerated forms that played with ideas of modernist minimalism while subverting its core principles. Poetry, photography, religion, and cinema all influenced his work, as seen in the Stalker chair—a steel and polyurethane foam piece with three precarious legs, directly inspired by Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1979 film Stalker. War was another recurring theme: the Tankette coffee table (1987) referenced tank tracks, the Barba d’Argento armchair (1986) suggested a machine gun, and the Bocca da Fuoco coat rack (1987) evoked an exploding cannon. Pallucco’s furniture disrupts modernist ideals of pure functionalism, offering an ironic critique of the relationship between war and modernist design.


Pallucco’s encounter with Kawakubo in the early 1980s led to one of his most defining collaborations. After visiting a Comme des Garçons store in Tokyo, he and Rivier were struck by its radical aesthetic. Introduced to Kawakubo through a mutual friend, Pallucco soon began producing furniture for Comme des Garçons stores. His pieces, characterized by stark industrialism, aligned perfectly with the avant-garde sensibilities of the brand. One standout creation was a series of triangular nested tables made from steel and stone, set on caster wheels for easy reconfiguration in the store’s dynamic retail environment.


Through his unconventional approach, Pallucco helped redefine the boundaries of furniture design. His collaboration with Comme des Garçons demonstrated a shared commitment to challenging norms, cementing his legacy as a visionary whose influence continues to resonate in contemporary design.