Giancarlo Mattioli

Giancarlo Mattioli designed Nesso with the Bologna architects' group Gruppo Architetti Urbanisti Città Nuova, and Artemide put it into production in 1967.

The lamp is a single injection-moulded ABS shell — a wide mushroom cap on four legs — made in one operation. It was an argument as much as an object: industrial plastic could produce something worth keeping, at a price that put it in ordinary homes.

Nesso is in the permanent collection of MoMA in New York. Nessino is the smaller version of the same form, still made today.