Peter Maly

Peter Maly (1936-) is a well-known German designer who has achieved great success especially since the 1980s. Strongly influenced by the legacy of the Bauhaus and the study of geometric shapes, Maly is a perfectionist who has always placed functionality at the centre of his work to the detriment of any bizarre intellectualism, as well summarised by his famous saying: “the chair is made for the butt, not for the head”. At the beginning of his career, he worked as a journalist for a decade, writing from 1960 to 1970 for the famous furniture magazine Schöner Wohnen, for which he also became responsible for the section dedicated to interior design. His career as a designer began at the end of the 1960s, when he had the opportunity to design a series of furnishings for the Tecta brand, and continued from 1970 with the foundation of his own studio in Hamburg. Peter Maly’s work is marked by some important collaborations that lasted several decades: first and foremost with the German upholstered furniture brand Cor, for which he was one of the leading names for a long time with numerous products including a great bestseller such as the Zyklus armchair (1984), but also with Interlübke, an important modular furniture brand part of the same group as Cor with which he created many creations including the successful Duo wardrobe (1984), and with the French giants Ligne Roset for which he curated store layouts all over the world as well as achieving excellent sales results with his Maly bed (1983). Over the course of his long career he has designed products for several other German brands including Anta, JAB Anstoetz, Thonet and Conmoto, but also often working abroad such as with the Italian company Tonon.