Lacquered Wood & Black Leather Golem Dining Chairs by Vico Magistretti for Poggi, 1970s, Set of 4

The chair with the high lacquered wood back, as Magistretti said, stemmed from the desire to pay homage to the designer Mackintosh after seeing an exhibition on the work of the Scottish architect. The element that serves as the backrest is lightly profiled to adjust to the seated position. It is one of the very few cases in which the reference to the past is not through the recovery of anonymous types and models, as Magistretti was used to doing. He revisited this formal typology with the collection of Koube chairs designed for the Japanese brand Aidec.

''The chair is unarguably elegant in its graceful lines, almost an attempt to translate the elaborate sophistication of the Scottish master into a formal diagram of linear simplicity.'' (Pasca Vanni, 1991, Vico Magistretti - L'eleganza della ragione, Milano, Idea Books).