Joseph B. Fenby was the British inventor who technically improved the classic foldable camp chair to be used by military in the field. The chair, that came to be known as the Tripolina was of simple construction made of wood, metal swivel joints and animal hide. Fenby patented the construction in the USA in 1881 and it later came to inspire several designers.
The most well-known of those are the BKF chair (also known as the Butterfly chair) by the Argentinian architects Antonio Bonet, Juan Kurchan and Jorge Ferrari Hardoy in 1938. After the second world war the BKF chair was produced by the US company Knoll and became an enormous success, not least because the chair suited young people's desire for unconventional and less conservative interiors.
