Lierna Chair

Lierna is a chair designed by Italian designers Achille Castiglioni and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni in 1959 at Lierna,^[1][2] made for Cassina.

It is a chair for its style dedicated to the village of Lierna on Lake Como, specifically designed as a seat to be paired with the dining table. Therefore it has a rather high backrest that shields the diner’s shoulders, narrow to facilitate the movements of those serving the meal, and well suited to the composed posture of seated people.

— Achille Castiglioni

The Lierna chair, named in honor of the town on Lake Como, features a lacquered solid wood frame and a padded seat upholstered in leather or fabric, and is considered a historic piece of Italian design. Despite being made of solid wood, the chair is very lightweight.^[3]

The design of the Lierna chair is very clean and pragmatic,^[4] reflecting on traditional models, following the path also explored by Giò Ponti. One of the key studies leading to the creation of this chair was ergonomics. The Castiglioni brothers commented on the Lierna chair: “It is a chair specifically designed as a seat to be placed at the dining table. Therefore, it has a rather high backrest that shields the diner’s shoulders, narrow to facilitate the movements of those serving the meal, and well suited to the composed posture of seated people. The chair was designed by us for Cassina, and we focused on a lightweight chair with essential section joints…”^[5]

The original version was produced by Cassina until 1960, after which production moved to Gavina. It is now a frequent item at international auctions, and a re-edition was recently produced in collaboration with the Castiglioni Foundation. The chair, with a curved backrest, was conceived in the 1950s as an innovative solution for new ways of sitting.^[6]

It was inspired by a later variant of the original "La Lierna" chair, the "La Irma" chair (Zanotta, 1979), where Achille Castiglioni maintained the same concept but replaced wood with steel tubing. The Lierna chair also inspired Giorgio Cattelan’s "La Lara".

The Lierna chair was designed by Achille Castiglioni and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni in Lierna on the shores of Lake Como, applying the innovative Castiglioni Method created by Giannino Castiglioni.

Giannino Castiglioni, father of Achille Castiglioni, Pier Giacomo Castiglioni and Livio Castiglioni, was a master and founder of Italian design, and with his children helped define the concept of Made in Italy recognized internationally. Some of the family’s works are exhibited at the MoMA in New York.