Four Decades – Four Landmarks in Chair Design

Four Decades – Four Landmarks in Chair Design

‍

Chair design has long reflected changes in society, technology, and craftsmanship. Over the past century, new materials and production techniques have shaped how chairs look and function. Some designs introduced bold ideas, while others set lasting trends. This article highlights four chairs from the 1920s to the 1950s that broke conventions and influenced furniture design for decades.

‍

Over the decades, the chair has been the ultimate design challenge for architects, designers, and craftsmen. New ideas and trends in furnishings are often first visible in chair design, and various factors can allow for changes. From a functional perspective, people’s needs vary according to living standards and housing developments over time. The introduction of new materials and innovations in manufacturing technology drive design evolution. Furthermore, shifts in society, architecture, art, and fashion often mirror how we, for better or for worse, relate to the chair. Below are four trend-breaking chairs that reflect progress and tendencies over forty years.

‍
1920s

‍The introduction of steel tube furniture and cantilever chairs was first seen at the end of the 1920s. It’s not officially stated who first introduced this type of chair, the Dutch architect Mart Stam (1899–1986) or the German-Hungarian Marcel Breuer (1902–1981). Breuer, one of the teachers at the Bauhaus School, launched his iconic B32 Cesca Chair in 1928. The bold combination of the cold chrome steel tube base and warm cane seat and back made this chair a loved icon, while other chairs from early European modernism did not arouse the same interest. Fifty years after its launch, the Cesca chair became one of the most copied chairs in the world.

‍

‍

1930s

The next innovative phase in modern chair design came at the beginning of the 1930s when the laminated veneer technique was developed. In parallel, Marcel Breuer, Alvar Aalto, and Bruno Mathsson started their eager experiments with the technique. Marcel Breuer collaborated with the British company Isocon and the Estonian manufacturer Luther to investigate the opportunities this new technology provided. Young Swede Bruno Mathsson (1907-1988) spent all hours experimenting in his father’s workshop, while the Finnish architect Alvar Aalto (1898-1976) developed his classic archetypical chairs at first with Otto Korhonen and later with the company Artek. His Model No. 66 chair, from 1935, is one of the masterpieces of Aalto’s furniture design.

‍

‍

1940s

The Second World War caused significant problems for European industries, including furniture manufacturing. However, in Sweden, which did not participate in the war, the industry remained largely intact. Throughout the 1940s, Swedish designers continued to develop new ideas and prepared for the increasing demand for furnishings in the post-war era. The number of small-scale furniture manufacturers in Sweden experienced significant growth, and by the end of the decade, Småland alone was home to several hundred such enterprises. Ikea was established in 1943 and quickly began providing Swedish households with new modern chairs.

One of the young Swedish architects emerging in the early 1940s was Carl-Axel Acking (1910-2001). At just 29 years old, he participated in the World’s Fair in New York. Four years later, in 1943, Acking received second prize in a competition organized by the Swedish Society of Arts and Crafts and the manufacturer Svenska Möbelfabrikerna i Bordafors. Acking’s entry, the Chair Model 41, was among the first chairs designed to be ‘knocked down’ for easy transportation. As we all know, that concept eventually became the most common construction method for low-cost chairs. Unfortunately, Acking’s chair was ahead of its time and, regrettably, experienced no sales success.

‍

‍

1950s

One of the most influential and remarkable designers of the 20th century, Verner Panton (1926-1998) created design objects, interior architecture, and visual art that changed people’s perspectives and inspired the next generation of designers. Panton was a master of the fluid, futuristic style of the 1960s, which brought the pop aesthetic to furniture and interiors. His ideologies and design concepts remain evident and significantly influence today's design.

The chair by Verner Panton that receives the most attention is the so-called Panton Chair. After studying previous plastic shell chairs designed by Ray and Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen in the 1950s, Panton decided to develop his own alternative: a monolithic chair without legs. “I want to design furniture that grows out of the floor—turning the chair into something organic and never with four legs,” Panton declared. Inspired by Gerrit Rietveld’s Zig-Zag wooden chair from 1934, Panton began developing his idea in the mid 1950s, and was finished in 1959. However, finding a manufacturer capable of realizing Panton’s vision of a monolithic, stackable plastic chair produced in one shot, using only one material and requiring no assembly or hand labor, was no easy task, to say the least. It lasted until 1967 when Swiss Fehlbaum Production, today Vitra Company, launched the Panton Chair.

‍

‍

Article written by Lars Bülow