Famous Stools, Poufs and Benches, from the Stool 60 to the Sacco

The little bench, the stool, the pouf: the furniture you move with one hand, and that still makes history. Six pieces without a backrest — from Aalto's birch column to a bag of Turinese beads — proving that design isn't measured in centimetres.

1. The Stool 60 — Alvar Aalto, 1933

Three L-shaped legs of bent birch — the "little sister of the column", as Aalto put it — screwed beneath a round disc. Shown in London in 1933, stackable in a spiral, produced by Artek ever since: the most copied stool in the world, right down to a Swedish giant we shan't name. See the original and its alternatives →

2. The Tam Tam — Henry Massonnet, 1968

Two clipped-together polypropylene cones, moulded in twelve seconds at Massonnet's factory, a specialist in… tackle boxes. Twelve million made, a photograph of Brigitte Bardot perched on one, and French pop had its throne. See the original and its alternatives →

3. The Butterfly Stool — Sori Yanagi, 1954

Two identical wings of moulded plywood, joined by a brass rod: the gesture of a Japanese torii with the Eames technique. Made by Tendo Mokko since 1954, it is the most elegant bridge between Tokyo and post-war modernism. See the original and its alternatives →

4. The Mezzadro — Achille & Pier Giacomo Castiglioni, 1957

A lacquered tractor seat, a cantilevered steel blade, a beech footrest: the ready-made applied to furniture, shown in 1957 and judged so provocative that Zanotta didn't dare produce it until 1970. Duchamp goes farming. See the original and its alternatives →

5. The Sacco — Gatti, Paolini & Teodoro, 1968

A bag of polystyrene beads that moulds itself to any posture: three Turinese designers invent the shapeless seat, and Zanotta has made it since 1968. Anti-design turned family furniture — and crowned with a lifetime-achievement Compasso d'Oro half a century later. See the original and its alternatives →

6. The Platform Bench — George Nelson, 1946

Pale wooden slats spaced across black legs: a bench, a coffee table, a plinth for everything else. Nelson's first collection for Herman Miller, 1946 — furniture as a platform, decades before the word became a concept. See the original and its alternatives →

And if you've spotted one in a photo?

Every piece on this list has its reference page on Beyit, with the original, its history and alternatives at every price. And if a piece of furniture intrigues you in a photo — an Instagram interior, a film, a period house — scan it: Beyit will identify it.