Pierre Castigliona

Pierre Castignola has one enduring obsession: the plastic chair. For nearly seven years, he has cut, dismantled, and reassembled this most ordinary of objects—low-cost, mass-produced, and aesthetically dismissed—transforming it into a series of unique sculptural works that are at once ironic, expressive, and striking in their presence. Even when he attempts to move on to other forms, the plastic chair inevitably returns, asserting itself as both subject and constraint.

Far from being merely banal, the plastic chair carries a rich set of cultural and social references. It is precisely these references that Castignola confronts and subverts, creating a sharp contrast between the object’s original status and the sculptural forms that emerge through his intervention. The chair becomes a canvas—a means, as he describes it, “to disrupt the hierarchy of materials.” What begins as constraint evolves into creative freedom, giving rise to a visual language that oscillates between science-fiction iconography, mechanical fantasy, and raw, visceral expression.

A graduate of the Design Academy Eindhoven (Cum Laude), Castignola grounds his practice in conceptual inquiry, drawing on semiotics, symbolism, subversion, and détournement, in the spirit of the Situationist movement. Through his work, he questions authorship, systems of value, and the construction of icons, elevating a familiar object into a singular statement. His chairs are less pieces of furniture than autonomous characters, charged with tension, humor, and sculptural presence.

Each work conveys a sense of unresolved form and destiny—an aesthetic born from obsession, constraint, and the overlooked. This fully assumed singularity defines Castignola’s practice. For TEMPO, it is precisely this clarity and intensity that set his work apart within today’s design landscape.