A Greek naturalized French, designer Lina Zervudaki was an active experimenter with the potential of wicker, which she used for the creation of mannequins, including those for Elsa Schiaparelli and Dior, as well as for children’s furniture pieces. The sinuosity of this material echoes in the design of this cradle, which Zervudaki made in colored metal, respecting the hues of the Olympic rings. The piece was presented at the International Exhibition ‘Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne’ in 1937.

It is easy to find a resonance between Sella and the world of sports: the seat uses an actual racing bicycle saddle, while the pink of the supporting steel column references the pink jersey worn by the winner of the Giro d’Italia. However, this Dadaist piece by the Castiglioni brothers, decidedly avant-garde for its time, is actually inspired by the one-legged seat used by milkers, reimagined in booming Italy as a support seat for phone calls. Its precarious balance, however, requires active use of the legs, effectively making this seat an invitation to mobilize the body by stressing its muscular tightness.

A huge baseball glove marks one of the icons of Italian hyperrealist design. De Pas, D’Urbino, and Lomazzi pay tribute to Joe DiMaggio, the unmatched star of American baseball, with this famous piece. They push beyond expectations the comfort and hospitality of the sofa type, here transformed into another parable of the informal. In 1978, the Swiss company De Sede echoed this with another hyperrealism piece, that of boxing, with the Boxing Glove.

A member of Memphis, Japanese designer Masanori Umeda gave with the unclassifiable Tawaraya an opportunity to immortalize the members of the famous Milanese collective with what is perhaps their most famous snapshot. Four and a half times the size of a tatami mat, but also equal to the minimum space of a Japanese apartment, Tawaraya is essentially a hybrid between a piece of furniture and a space. Umeda also described it as ‘a place for intellectual fight,’ conceiving it as a metaphor for the debate between designers and critics.

An evolution of the Tavolo con Ruote, also designed by Gae Aulenti for FontanaArte, Tour swaps the original industrial trolley wheels for bicycle wheels, giving us one of the greatest tributes to cycling in the world of design. The chromed forks support a square top made of clear tempered glass.

Among the many pieces of furniture in this gallery that look to the world of sports as a source of inspiration for ironic design, Tennis stands out as a focused and realistic response to the needs of umpires and players on the court. Designed by Pierre Charpin, the line consists of an umpire’s chair and a player’s bench. Made of lacquered aluminum and teak, they feature ample support surfaces beneath the seats.

With irony and a touch of surrealism, Atelier Biagetti entertained the Milan Furniture Fair with a collection curated by Maria Cristina Didero, inspired by the world of gym workouts. Without deviating entirely from functional purposes, the pieces presented explicitly recalled the equipment used in gymnastics, while translating and sublimating their aesthetics to the furniture world. An amusing example is the hanging lamp, which sequences a series of gymnastics rings, reimagined here with unexpected circular neon lights.

Transformability is the primary gene in Campeggi’s DNA. For this airy piece, Emanuele Magini, a longtime collaborator of the brand, once again uses hyperbole and irony to conceive a piece of furniture that freely reinterprets design codes. His swing is attached to a chair with elongated legs, serving both as support for the swing and as an opportunity for rest, much like a hammock.

The fun of sports transformed into a home entertainment. Studio Lievito reimagines ping pong with a double-sided mirrored paddle and a marble ball that functions as a support piece. The piece was developed for a performance inviting spectators to play solo against a ping pong table with a mirrored wall at mid-court, a metaphor for investigating the sense of reflected image and identity.