DESIGNER SPOTLIGHT
Piero Lissoni
BORN
1956, Seregno, Italy
PRACTICE
Lissoni & Partners
KNOWN FOR
Furniture, Architecture, Art Direction
AT SALONE
Living Divani · RODA
THE ARCHITECT OF RESTRAINT
Photography: Francesco Caredda
There is a particular kind of confidence required to take things away. To look at a chair, a sofa, a room, and decide that what it needs is less. Piero Lissoni has been practicing this discipline for nearly four decades, and it shows in every proportion, every material choice, and every detail.
Born in 1956 in Seregno — a town in Brianza, the same northern Italian province that produced so many of the great furniture families — Lissoni graduated in architecture from the Politecnico di Milano in 1985. The following year, he founded Lissoni Associati with Nicoletta Canesi, a studio that has grown into Lissoni & Partners, with offices in Milan and New York and a practice that spans architecture, interior design, and product design.
What unifies everything Lissoni touches is an almost philosophical commitment to proportion. In all his work, Lissoni reaches for balance — between soft and structure, warmth and precision, the timeless and the immediate. His influences run from Italian masters — Zanuso and Castiglioni, under whom he studied at the Politecnico — to the Scandinavian rigour of Jacobsen and Kjærholm, a dual inheritance that shows in everything he makes.
The recognition has followed accordingly. Lissoni is the recipient of the Compasso d'Oro Career Award — the highest honor in Italian design — alongside many others. He holds honorary membership in Altagamma, the foundation that represents Italy's finest luxury brands on the world stage.
At Salone, his vision is present across two of our most important collections: Living Divani, where he has served as creative director for decades, and RODA, where his work brings the same considered intelligence to outdoor living.
DESIGNED BY PIERO LISSONI
LIVING DIVANI
Frog
1995
Thirty years on, the Frog still defines Living Divani more than any other. The Frog's crouched, wide-armed silhouette proposed a different idea of sitting — slower, more deliberate, closer to the ground — at a moment when furniture was still largely upright and formal. Its steel frame supports upholstery in woven natural or synthetic fibers, giving the chair an almost floating appearance. It has since appeared in carbon fiber, padded leather and fabric versions, and most recently as the Super Frog — a 30th anniversary edition with an aluminum frame and enhanced dimensions, playing on the contrast between lightness and solidity.
LIVING DIVANI
Extrasoft
2008
Launched in 2008 and expanded with new storage elements in 2022, Extrasoft brought a new softness to Lissoni's vocabulary without surrendering any of its rigor. The modular seats are deep, yielding, and genuinely comfortable — elements that connect with hooks and can be arranged in irregular, flowing compositions that feel simultaneously casual and completely intentional. It has become Living Divani's most celebrated design, and one of the most replicated sofas in contemporary furniture — a distinction that tells you everything about its significance.
LIVING DIVANI
Sumo
2020
The name is Lissoni's own joke — and he means it. "Sumo is a paradox, a folly," he has said, "because it was born from a curve and unites the strength of a Sumo fighter with the airy, light and delicate elegance of an airplane wing." The piece delivers exactly that tension: a lenticular frame that curves inward at the base, almost concave, raised on slender metal feet — and then, sitting on top of it, deep and generous goose-down upholstery that absorbs you entirely. Winner of Interior Design Magazine's Best of Year award and the NYCxDESIGN Award, Sumo has since expanded into a full bed and bench collection.
LIVING DIVANI
Echoo System
2025
Living Divani's most recent sofa family, and Lissoni's most current statement on how people actually inhabit a room. The Echoo System takes the concept he introduced with the original Echoo — a shell that encompasses the entire sofa, enveloping the cushions within to create a harmonious ensemble — and opens it into fluid, modular configurations that adapt to evolving spaces. Lissoni's own description of the design's DNA stays with you: "It is rather like a slightly distorted echo. It's not straight but bends at a certain point — it was born straight but then it was distorted."
RODA
Levante
2021
Outdoor furniture presents a particular challenge: weather, sun, the passage of seasons. Lissoni's response with the Levante collection for RODA was to reach for the most durable material — FSC-certified teak — and treat it with what he describes as a "smart, hyper-industrial" approach that produces results with the allure of classical outdoor furniture. The collection spans dining tables, dining chairs, a lounge chair, and a chaise-longue, all united by wide, clean teak slats and a timeless silhouette that, as Lissoni notes, ages beautifully without demanding much in return.
RODA
Stresa
2025
Where Levante speaks in the language of teak and tradition, Stresa is its aluminum counterpart — lighter, more urban, equally considered. Named after the town on Lake Maggiore, the collection draws on the atmosphere of lakeside villa gardens and classical metal garden furniture, translated into powder-coated aluminum with a distinctive perforated diamond-pattern backrest that gives the pieces visual lightness without sacrificing structure.
THE PHILOSOPHY IN PRACTICE
The aesthetic is no different in architecture, art direction, interior design, or design: it is one philosophy and the guidelines are simplicity, elegance, and silence.
- PIERO LISSONI
The collaboration between Lissoni and Living Divani is one of the most enduring in Italian design — a partnership built not on dramatic reinvention but on shared values developed over decades. Living Divani's CEO Carola Bestetti, daughter of the brand's founders, has described the approach simply: staying true to principles while remaining genuinely open to how people live. Lissoni's work for the brand reflects exactly this — furniture that does not announce itself, that earns its place in a room through presence rather than performance.
It is a philosophy that translates directly to what we look for at Salone: objects designed to last, chosen with the understanding that a great piece of furniture is not a statement made once, but a relationship sustained over years.
EXPERIENCE LISSONI AT SALONE
LIVING DIVANI
As creative director since 1988, Lissoni has shaped Living Divani into one of the most quietly influential upholstery brands in the world. His work for the brand spans nearly four decades of pieces that propose a different relationship with comfort — lower, slower, more considered.
Extra Wall · Extrasoft · Sumo · NeoWall · Clan · Echoo · Echoo System
EXPLORE LIVING DIVANI AT SALONE
RODA
Lissoni's collaboration with RODA brings the same architectural discipline to outdoor living. His collections for the brand treat the terrace, garden, and poolside with the same seriousness as any interior — materials chosen for longevity, proportions resolved for permanence.
Levante · Stresa · Levante Dining · Levante Lounge
EXPLORE RODA AT SALONE
Visit Salone in the Las Vegas Arts District to experience Piero Lissoni's designs for Living Divani and RODA. Our team can guide you through the collections and help specify pieces for your project.