The Italian designer Gaetano Pesce studied architecture and industrial design in Venice from 1959 until 1965. Pesce then lived in Padua until 1967, working as an artist and making films. In 1968 Gaetano Pesce developed "Up", a delightful seating furniture line for B&B Italia. The individual "Up" pieces are made of polyurethane foam and were not sold as "finished" furniture; instead they were a forerunner of the flat pack, marketed in a blister pack. Not until brought home and unpacked did these intriguing armchairs, sofas, or footstools take on form after the polyurethane foam could absorb enough air to plump them up. Gaetano Pesce's later pieces were even more radical in design than the "Up" line, with its soft, almost feminine forms, and many of these later Gaetano Pesces were one-offs. Gaetano Pesce is beyond all question one of the most independent thinkers in the international design scene and is best described as an artist-designer. In designing, Gaetano Pesce always takes into consideration the principle of the individuality of each piece. Pesce has succeeded in individualizing even serially produced furniture by using materials that leave a certain amount of chance to the manufacturing process. However, the uniqueness of a product designed by Gaetano Pesce is not defined by such abstract concepts as beauty; instead, Pesce deliberately incorporates what is faulty or misshapen. In 1972 Gaetano Pesce designed the "Rag chair". In 1975/76 Pesce created "Sit down" - seat furniture based on the intriguing principle of having no two pieces alike. In 1980 Gaetano Pesce designed the "Dalila" chairs and, in 1983, the "Pratt chairs" made of polyurethane resin. All Gaetano Pesce designs are informed by a quirky sense of humor. In 1993 Pesce designed the "Broadway", a chair with a transparent seat and back made of epoxy resin. Springs are attached to the bottoms of the "Broadway" chair legs to make the chair seesaw back and forth. The 1995 Gaetano Pesce "Umbrella" folding chair looks like a furled umbrella - until you push a button to open it up like its namesake.