Carlo Ratti Examines the Monobloc Plastic Chair in Wallpaper* Summer Series 'Objectify'

Architect Carlo Ratti has launched 'Objectify', a summer series for Wallpaper* that explores Italy through everyday objects. The first installment focuses on the monobloc plastic chair, a ubiquitous item that provokes strong emotions. Ratti notes its presence everywhere from family barbecues to Ipanema Beach and even the cover of Bad Bunny's album 'DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS', yet it is banned in his Italian office garden and was prohibited in Basel from 2008 to 2017. He traces its origins to Joe Colombo's Universale 4867 chair, produced by Kartell and now in MoMA's collection, which revolutionized design in the 1960s by using injection-molded plastic. The monobloc, though less elegant, stacks better and has conquered the world, with over one billion produced and one Italian company making ten million annually at a few euros each. Ratti attributes its mixed reputation to changing attitudes toward plastic, now a symbol of environmental crisis due to microplastics, and to its overwhelming repetition, comparing it to Vivaldi's Four Seasons. He cites MIT colleague Ethan Zuckerman's idea that the chair may have become so ubiquitous it has disappeared. The series, published weekly in Il Sole 24 Ore, aims to highlight overlooked Italian design objects, inspired by Proust's madeleine. Ratti is an architect and engineer leading CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati, teaching at Politecnico di Milano and MIT, and directed the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale.