CH88 by Hans Wegner 1955

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Carl Hansen has just released the CH88 chair, as part of their celebrations to mark the centennial year for Hans Wegner.

With its metal frame and oval seat and with the frame continuing up to a short yoke-shaped wooden back with upturned ends to support the elbows, this chair is one of a small series of metal-framed chairs that were designed by Wegner in the 1950s and 1960s.  

A prototype for the CH88 was designed in 1955 and exhibited at a fair in Helsingborg that hd been organised by Foreningen Svensk Form (the Swedish Design Association) but it did did not go into commercial production.

Now, at last in production, it has only been available since May.

There are several points to be made about the design. Perhaps the most obvious is that Wegner, the consummate cabinet maker and master of wooden chairs, rarely, in relative terms, produced furniture with a metal frame. Several chairs with a wood frame have the yoke-shaped back but in most it is longer, curving round to provide a rest under the forearms. In this design for the CH88, the ends are tapered, curve slightly inwards, and turn up to support the elbows. This sounds awkward but my prose are markedly more uncomfortable than the chair. 

Historically, in England, dining chairs with long arm rests on either side were popular and known as carvers but generally were only placed at the ends of the table, while chairs down each side of the table were usually without arms. This in part marks status, only the householder sitting at the head of the table and his wife at the opposite end sit on chairs with arms, but it was also practical because simple ergonomics means the arm is at about the same height as the top of the table so it is difficult or impossible to push carvers, dining chairs with arms, neatly under or against the table when they are not occupied.

 
 

height 76cm
width 57cm
depth 44.5cm
height to seat 44.5cm

produced by Carl Hansen & Son

The oval seat of the CH88 is deceptively simple. It is made in cut and shaped plywood which has a hollow shape and a gentle rounding of the front edge.

In cheaper or less well-designed chairs, plywood seats can quickly feel uncomfortably flat and rigid or unforgiving and the front edge can stick into the back of the legs immediately below the knee. This is certainly not a problem with the CH88, which is extremely comfortable, and there are several options ... the seat can be simply stained or painted, or it can be upholstered in fabric or leather and that makes the design remarkably flexible ... this could be a practical, hard-working chair in a business meeting room or could be used in the most sophisticated and formal dining room.

The metal frames linking the legs are welded together for strength and form a strong solid support for the seat but there are also plastic buffers or spacers that fix the legs to the plywood of the seat and control it's rigidity, giving the chair an appropriate level of flexibility and movement … otherwise sitting on it could feel like plonking down on a rigid bench.

When seen from underneath, it is obvious that the frame extends well beyond the edge of the seat and that the legs, both at the front and the back, are straight and vertical. In part this is why the chairs can be stacked but it also creates a more comfortable angle and spatial relationship between the seat and the back. If a chair has a solid back at a fixed angle then it dictates the angle of the sitter's spine unless they perch forward on the edge of the seat. In the CH88 you can decide how far back you sit in the seat ... by moving the base of your spine back into the chair you adjust the angle of your back and adjust, even if it is by a small amount, where the back of the chair supports your spine. We sit down so often and sit on so many different chairs that we do it automatically and rarely think about what we are doing but we do notice when a chair is badly designed and gets these angles and relationships wrong. Wegner is praised for the appearance and the quality and the style of his chair designs and it seems slightly inane to point it out but, above all, his chairs are also remarkably and consistently comfortable.

There are a number of colour options for the back and the seat and the steel frame if it is powder-coated - Carl Hansen's flagship store in Bredgade in Copenhagen has a display at the moment that includes a CH88 in a striking maroon - and the back rest, if not painted, comes in beech, oak or smoked oak and, as always with pieces from Carl Hansen, there is a choice of soap finish, lacquer/oil or white oil.

For English readers this choice of finish for wood may be slightly baffling and seem like an indulgence or an unnecessary complication but it really is worth giving it very careful consideration, not only in terms of how you want to use the furniture - how much dirt and how much staining and cleaning might be involved - but also the wood treatment has a profound effect on the appearance. So, for instance, white oil has a soft matt finish and gives oak the look of English furniture in fumed oak that was fashionable in the 1920s and 1930s.

The CH88 is strong but light and can be stacked and is remarkably comfortable as a dining chair, for conference-room seating or as a work/desk chair.

note:
posted on 4 June 2014

 

Munkegård chair / FH3105 by Arne Jacobsen 1955

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A small and elegant chair designed by Arne Jacobsen for Munkegård School in Copenhagen. It is sometimes referred to as The Mosquito.

Versions were produced by Fritz Hansen in beech, teak and stained black. The chair has been in production several times but is not currently available.

Jacobsen designed the elementary school that was completed in 1957 and, as with so many of his major projects, he designed so much more than the structure, designing the paving and planting of the courtyards, fittings including lighting and, with the chairs, Jacobsen also designed a school desk in plywood with a metal frame. The design of the desk has a simple flat top or writing surface that is bent to run down the back and then back under the top to form a shelf for books. The front edge of the shelf was turned down in the same way that the front edge of the chair seats was angled down to protect the back of the legs. The frame of the desks also included a hook on one side for hanging a school bag.

 

 

designed by Arne Jacobsen
made by Fritz Hansen

height: 77 cm
width: 40.5 cm
depth: 47 cm
height of seat: 42.5 cm and lower versions with seat height of 36 cm and 40 cm

 

Tungen / The Tongue / FH3106 by Arne Jacobsen 1955

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This was the only chair in the series that could not be stacked. Initially the catalogue reference was FH3106 but when production was resumed in 1985 it was renumbered with the new reference of 3102.

 

designed by Arne Jacobsen
made by Fritz Hansen

height: 79 cm
width: 43 cm
depth: 49 cm

Grand Prix-stolen / Grand Prix Chair / FH4130 by Arne Jacobsen 1957

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Grand Prix in the permanent collection of Designmuseum Danmark in Copenhagen

 

The chair was shown at the XI Triennial in Milan in 1957 - where the design was awarded the Grand Prix from which it takes its name - and then shown at Charlottenborg, in Copenhagen, later in the same year.

In the original version the shell was made with a teak or beech finish or the chair could be upholstered.

The shape of the back is closely related to the FH3103 but here, rather than a straight line across the top of the back, the back has a truncated or stumpy Y shape that makes it, somehow, almost anthropomorphic.

There is a pronounced scooping out to the shape of the seat and at the front a pronounced down turn or lip.

Initially the chair had four separate legs that were L shaped and in laminated beech with a strong moulding to the cross section presumably, in part, to make it look less solid or less heavy. The legs mimicked the profile of the metal legs on the other shell chairs so were angled out towards the floor and at the top were curved but under the seat they were shaped to form a long hammer or hockey-stick shape to form as long a face as possible along the top for the legs to be glued to the underside of the shell. This proved to be unstable - presumably under the weight of a person the centre of the seat moved down or the legs splayed out and even if the glue of the leg held then the face layer of the plywood would presumably split away from the layer below.

 

 

The design was changed and the individual legs were replaced with two n-shaped pieces of steam-bent beech that cross at the centre where they are halved over each other to form a robust join and fixed to a circular plywood plate at the centre of the underside of the moulded shell. That form is closely related to the frame of legs in wood made for the Giraffe - the dining chair that Jacobsen designed for the SAS Royal Hotel.

A version of the Grand Prix chair with steel legs was also produced and in catalogues is identified as model FH3130.

 

designed by Arne Jacobsen
made by Fritz Hansen

height: 78 cm
width: 48 cm
depth: 51 cm
height of seat: 42.5 cm

Den spanske stol / Spanish Chair by Børge Mogensen 1958

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Børge Mogensen - the zebra skin and the wall hanging suggest that the photograph was taken in 1958 on the exhibition stand of the cabinetmaker Erhard Rasmussen at Kunstindustrimusset

 

designed by Børge Mogensen in 1958
shown by Erhard Rasmussen at the Cabinetmakers’ Guild Exhibition at Kunstindustrimuseet in Copenhagen in 1958

made by Fredericia

height: 67 cm
width: 82.5 cm
depth: 60 cm
height of seat: 33 cm

 

Designed by Børge Mogensen - The Spanish Chair was first shown in September and October 1958 at the Cabinetmakers’ Guild Exhibition at Kunstindutrimuseet in Copenhagen - now called Designmuseum Danmark. Produced by the Danish furniture company Fredericia - they are now celebrating its 60th anniversary.

The chair was shown in an interesting room setting along with a very large sofa upholstered in a giant check that was said to be large enough to sleep three and there was a zebra skin on the floor and models of yacht hulls across the wall … all with the title “furniture for a country house.”

They were described by the critic Johan Møller Nielsen as -

“the chair and couch for the consummate idler! It is hardly possible to make furniture more expensive than this. The whole interior is wonderful to look at and to to be in, and it would be well suited to be exhibited in one of the rooms of the ‘Louisiana’ museum of modern art as an example of the best furniture design of our age. But it is of no value whatsoever to the average citizen …”

Louisiana - just up the coast from the city - had only opened that August.

Even reading the criticism several times, and having typed it out, it’s not clear if this is praise or criticism.

Of course, it’s ironic that Børge Mogensen, is being damned here, apparently, for designing furniture that the average citizen could not afford, because he was and is best known not just as one of the great designers of his generation but through the 1940s as the head of design for FDB - the Danish Coop - when they produced well-designed modern furniture of a high quality and at the lowest price possible.

For the exhibition in 1958 the set of Spanish chairs were made by the cabinetmaker Erhard Rasmussen but the design was then produced by the Danish furniture company Fredericia who still make the chair.

To mark the anniversary of the Spanish Chair, Fredericia have relaunched the dining chairs, with and without arms, that were designed in 1964 that have the same form of set and back rest with leather stretched across the frame and held in place with large buckles.

Fredericia

Deck Chair JH524 / pp524 by Hans Wegner 1958

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Hans Wegner designed this elegant and simple recliner or deck chair in wood in 1958. 

There are two main sections … a long frame for the seat is gently curved in a convex arc that rests on the ground at the back but is raised off the ground by short tapered legs towards the front. 

Inset from the back is a frame for the back rest that is fixed to the seat frame with metal pivots on each side and held in one of four possible angles by a bar of metal hinged to the back rest and held at the bottom on sprogs on the seat frame … a mechanism similar to that on the Tub Chair also by Wegner and designed in 1954.

This appears to be a basic arrangement when compared with the beautiful and well-made brass hinges on the deck chair by Kaare Klint.

There are no arm rests on the recliner by Wegner.

There are wide, cross bars or stretchers set flat across the frames at strategic points so between the legs, at the very front edge of the seat frame, towards the foot at the back end of the seat and across the back rest just below the top. The side frames of the back rest continue above the cross bar and are shaped and reminiscent of the handles of a wheel barrow … presumably a feature to help manoeuvre the chair into the right position in the sun.

There is no cross bar or stretcher at the bottom of the back rest - as this would stick into the lower back of someone using the chair - so the frame of the back rest is held rigid by the pivots or hinges at the bottom where the back rest is joined to the frame of the seat.

The rope or halyard runs backwards and forwards across the seat and back rest and is threaded through regularly-spaced holes along the sides of the two frames.

 

designed by Hans Wegner
first made by Johannes Hansen and then by PP Møbler

oak or ash with halyard - jute with nylon core

overall height varies depending on angle of back
base / seat section length: 159 cm
width: 64 cm
height of front edge of seat: 45 cm

 

PP Møbler


 
 

Chair J2991 by Ole Wanscher 1960

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chair in the collection of Designmuseum Danmark

Ole Wanscher (1903-1985)
made by A J Iversen

 

modern version of the Faaborg Chair designed by Kaare Klint and made by Rud. Rasmussen

 

From the late 1930s and all the way through to the last Cabinetmakers' Exhibition in 1966, A J Iversen showed furniture designed by Ole Wanscher.

A number of variations were produced of chairs in this style, one with a deeper back rest and another with a bowed front to the seat. This form of chair remained popular through the 50s and 60s - with the back rest running round into the arm rests and the curve supported at the front by the front legs taken up as posts. This gives the frame of the chair structural integrity so, although the legs are relatively thin and certainly elegant, the construction is so precise that stretchers can be omitted.

The upholstery for the seat is interesting with a thin pad with what appears to be an internal plywood frame with canvas webbing to form a thin profile and the main rails of the seat itself are relatively shallow so the chair is remarkably elegant … compare this with, for instance, the chair by Kaare Klint for the Thorvaldsen Museum with a deep seat rail to form a more robust chair or with the Faaborg Chair from 1914 to which it is obviously related.

In the view from below it becomes clear that the front, back and side rails of the seat are separate pieces that are housed into the legs. The back legs are set an angle so the square cross section of the legs are flush with the curve of the back and there are blocks of wood across the inside to reinforce the join where the wood of the frame of the seat is housed into the legs and these blocks also support the upholstered seat itself. Similarly, at the front, curved angle pieces or brackets reinforce the join of the side frame and front frame to the front post and again provide the main support for the seat.

The back rest and arms are formed from four pieces of wood with a tight zig-zag join and like several of the chairs designed by Wegner the back rest is thicker and vertical but where the wood curves round into the arm rests these are thinner and set flat but the effect it so subtle here that it is far less sculptural - far less dramatic. 

The outer ends of the arm rests swell out slightly in width and are rounded off. Perhaps the strongest feature is the continuous horizontal line of the underside of the back rest and arm rests that, with the straight and horizontal line of the front rail of the seat, gives the chair a certain sharpness or sense of line that marks it out clearly from work by Juhl or even from designs by Wegner. 

The front legs are vertical but above the front rail of the seat they taper in thickness and curve outwards slightly to the sides and the back legs or rather the back posts are curved for the full height in a gentle arc so their silhouette, with the leg curving out and away to the floor, is a late echo of the Klismos form.

In his review of the Cabinetmakers' Exhibition in 1962, Bent Salicath in Dansk Kunsthåndværk makes an interesting comment on the furniture shown that year when Wanscher and Iversen showed a version of this chair in rosewood with a more pronounced bow to the front rail of the seat and there was a companion chair with the same frame and seat but a high-arched backrest that was upholstered and covered with leather:

"Ole Wanscher might be called the philologist of furniture making. His chairs are constructed with a stringency which seems almost grammatical, and they betray a great feeling for the linguistic qualities of the dimensioning. He devotes himself to bringing out clearly pronounced forms in his furniture." *

 

notes:

 * Quotation from Dansk Møbelkunst Gennem 40 År Volume 4, page 198

As a student, Ole Wanscher studied under Kaare Klint at the Danish School of Art and Design and then, from 1924 until 1927, worked with Klint before establishing his own office. On the death of Klint in 1955, Wanscher succeeded him as professor at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and remained there until his retirement in 1973.

A J Iversen was a major figure in the guild of cabinetmakers and he is recognised as one of the great furniture makers of the 20th century but this partnership with Wanscher can be seen, with hindsight, as marking the end of an era. Jacob Kjær, another major figure in the guild, had died in 1957 and this period is marked by increasing doubts and rising pressure as the furniture factories became more and more powerful and as the demand for good furniture meant more and more a demand for good design but at a price more people could afford. 

 

Tyrestolen / Long-Horned Bull Chair by Hans Wegner 1961

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A wide chair with a shaped back with longer arm rests than the Cow Horn Chair. The back is formed from two pieces of curved wood that are joined at the centre with six tenons in rosewood.

The legs are set at a slight angle, the front legs proud of the seat and rounded at the top - reminiscent of the Wishbone or Y Chair. There are stretchers at the front and back as well as between the front and back legs - all set close to the seat. The cane seat is shaped, curved down at the front and back, and the upholstered version has the leather upholstered directly over the rails of the seat.

A round table with four of these chairs in teak were shown by Johannes Hansen at the Cabinetmakers' Exhibition in 1961. Svend Erik Møller in Politiken wrote:

“His new models will not cause a stir - they will not even become the subjects of discussion. It is simply outstanding furniture making, the result of an ideal cooperation between an architect and a cabinetmaker who understand each other perfectly.”

PP Møbler

 

designed by Hans Wegner (1914-2007)
cabinetmaker Johannes Hansen, PP Møbler

original chair teak - now in oak, ash or cherry
detail rosewood
cane seat or upholstered

height: 74 cm
width: 72 cm
depth: 51 cm
height of seat: 45 cm

PK 9 / EKC 9 by Poul Kjærholm 1961

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PK9 in the collection of Designmuseum Danmark

 

 

designed by Poul Kjærholm (1929-1980)
made by E Kold Christensen
and then from 1982 made by Fritz Hansen Eftf

matte chrome-plated steel
shell - polyester / leather

height: 74 cm
width: 56 cm
depth: 60 cm
height of seat: 41 cm

Poul Kjærholm was in his early 30s when he designed this chair but it is remarkably self-assured … there is clarity in the concept  and a simplicity in the shape so that even today, nearly sixty years later, the chair seems to be free of conventions or styles and free of forms from the past.

This was not a matter of just stripping away decoration or just simplifying shapes and nor was it just a rationalisation to explore what is essential for a chair but, in the design of the PK9, Kjærholm re-assessed the relationship between function and the support and structure of a chair and combined that with a highly-developed awareness of shape and space. 

His self confidence was more than justified: Kjærholm graduated in 1952 and from 1955 taught furniture design at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. Through the 1950s he produced a number of experimental and innovative designs - a chair with one leg, a shell chair like an open clam - with two curved pieces of aluminium bolted together - a wire chair shaped like a great swoosh and these were followed by a series of chairs and tables that went into production - including the low easy chair PK22, a side chair PK 1 and a glass and steel table PK61. In 1958 he was awarded the Lunning Prize - then the most prestigious award for design in Scandinavia - and in 1960 he designed Denmark's pavilion for the Triennial in Milan.

The first winner of the Lunning Prize, at its inception in 1951, was Hans Wegner* and it was perhaps only Wegner who had as clear a view of the final form of a design - seen from all angles in three dimensions - from the first stage of the design process.

But, much more than Wegner, Kjærholm controlled how his furniture would sit in a larger space … so he considered carefully how the lines; the shapes or silhouette and the planes of a design not only define their own volume but are also defined and affected by the wider space.

From 1947 Wegner had taught at the School of Arts, Crafts and Design and after working in partnership with Ejvind Kold Christensen on several designs he introduced him to Poul Kjærholm who, at that point, was still one of Wegner’s students. 

Kold, a few years older than Wegner, was the son of a cabinetmaker and had been apprenticed to learn upholstery but became a travelling furniture salesman and it was only after the War, when he met Wegner and began to work closely with him, that he became a catalyst for work with first Wegner and then Kjærholm. Kold was a businessman who understood and appreciated the importance of using the best materials and the importance of retaining the standards of skilled craftsmanship,even in metal work and engineering, but recognised the commercial potential to be gained from rationalising designs so that they could be produced in larger quantities for sale to a wider range of customers. He is credited with the idea of designing furniture so that it could be delivered in parts and then assembled to reduce the cost of shipping. Kold was important because he established a network of manufacturers to make the furniture but also marketed the work of Wegner and then Kjærholm oversees.

Kjærholm had also trained as a cabinetmaker before studying under Wegner so quality of workmanship was a fundamental part of his work. In an interview that was published in 1963, Kjærholm was asked if his furniture was designed with a view to industrial manufacture and replied that his "furniture, like most furniture at the Cabinetmakers' Guilds' exhibition, is 50% handmade and 50% industrially made. Here in Denmark we would not accept 100% industrial manufacture unless its results were technically better than the work of the hand. I will not accept a surface or material treatment of the kind found in Eames's mass-produced furniture."

But Kjærholm also studied under Jørn Utzon, who taught industrial design, and he encouraged Kjærholm to explore the use of less conventional materials for furniture and from 1956 onwards, Kold and Kjærholm worked on furniture where the main material was metal, rather than wood, with high-quality engineering techniques replacing wood and cabinetmaking skills to create new forms of Danish furniture. **

Ole Palsby - in his essay in a book on Kjærholm that was published in 1999 - made the crucial point that Kold and Kjærholm succeeded because they used metal in a Scandinavian context. 

Elsewhere in Europe, through the 1930s and later, in the work of the designers from the Bauhaus and elsewhere, metal furniture was made, generally, with a frame in steel tubing, usually with a polished chrome finish, and that was not popular in Denmark. If there was any inspiration for his ideas from the work of the Bauhaus, Kjærholm looked to the work of Ludvig Mies van der Rohe for the low height and the solid weight of his furniture - for instance the Barcelona Chair of 1929 - and, more significant, to his buildings and interiors for setting furniture in formal, stark spaces. 

Working with Kold, Kjærholm used heavy steel in flat strips with a matt finish that had very different qualities to metal tubing and he combined the steel with high-quality leather and unpolished wood that provided a much more subdued contrast of colours and tones. Kjærholm appreciated the way that steel aged - developing a patina. 

He used glass for table tops but primarily so that the frame rather than the surface dominated. Kjærholm said "I consider steel a material with the same artistic merit as wood and leather."

Rather than welding, Kjærholm used sophisticated bolts and locking nuts to join the metal parts and that reinforced the sense that these chairs and tables were an expression of precise engineering. These fixings are as important in the design process for Kjærholm as the exposed but precise joins and new ways of bending and shaping wood that Wegner developed in his collaboration with cabinetmakers.

It would be a mistake - in emphasising the engineering and the architectural aspects of his work - to loose sight of the fact that Poul Kjærholm trained and began his career as a cabinetmaker and understood not just the importance of using the best materials but also the importance of working with the best craftsmen to produce his furniture. He worked with the metal smith Herluf Poulsen; with Ivan Schlecter for upholstery, particularly leather, and with Ejnar Pedersen, founder and owner of the cabinetmakers PP Møbler, for work in wood.

Ole Palsby made another important point when he observed that furniture by Kjærholm is "generally smaller, low and transparent, making man the most important part of the room" and observed that Kold "believed to the end that artistic quality can sell, that production with an artistic intention was marketable."

Kjærholm designed the displays in Bredgade at the showrooms of E Kold Christensen where the furniture was shown against large black and white photographs of open landscapes and this format was repeated for an exhibition in Paris where the space was precisely divided and controlled with lines of pendant lights forming a cross to divide the main space and furniture was placed precisely to show the importance of the space around each piece.

In 1965 Kjærholm designed the display for an exhibition of his work held at the showroom of Ole Palsby in Hovedvagtsgade in Copenhagen.*** 

There the furniture was shown disassembled so, for the PK9, one shell was shown covered with leather and one uncovered and both on a low plinth alongside the three steel legs and the two spacing pieces that lock the legs together to form the support of the shell. Shown like this the reaction must have been to think that surely something must be missing. Could such a sophisticated chair come from so few and such simple parts? But it is only when those simple but precisely-designed parts are assembled that, they define and occupy a space; take on a real volume, and only then assume their function as something a person could sit on. Perhaps that is why Michael Sheridan, in his Catalogue Raisonne, described the furniture by Kjærholm as "studies in construction."

That is shown clearly in the design of the support of the shell in the PK9. Inevitably, with a shell in plywood or plastic or fibre glass or, as here, in polyester, the support for the chair is almost invariably in a different material. Arne Jacobsen designed L-shaped legs that met in a central block under the set for the support of shell chairs; several designers produced a frame work with either legs or even runners and some designed a central column combined either with feet that branched out from the bottom or a circular pedestal.

With the PK9 Kjærholm has just three pieces of steel that are vertical at the centre but curved out at the bottom to form a stable base and curved out at the top to support the seat with two identical pieces at the front running out to the sides and one slightly longer curve of steel running straight out to the back to support and brace the chair. These three strips of metal are joined by two small hexagonal joining pieces to create not a central column but three faces of the outline of a hexagonal column. The angles of the upper curves set the seat with a slight backwards tilt.

The shell of the PK9 - moulded in polyester and covered with leather - makes this, perhaps, the most beautiful chair of this type. It can be difficult to talk about aesthetics - about why one shape or a line or curve is beautiful and another not - because ultimately it has to be a subjective judgement but this chair has a balance and a generous width but an elegance of line that has not been matched.

Looking back, it is difficult to see how Kjærholm created such a subtle and complex shape without being able to model it in 3D on a computer. There is a story that Kjærholm was at the beach with his wife Hanne and when she stood up he was inspired by the impression her bottom had left in the sand and modelled that shape in clay.

For some chairs there are sketches and working drawings by Kjærholm with elevations on graph paper but that hardly seems to be the way to design such a complex shape. 

A photograph survives of a wire chair designed by Kjærholm in 1953 that shows a wooden former and a full-size papier-mâché model and it would have been possible to draw lines over the paper to get the spacing of the wires right. The shape of the seat for that chair, without the base is close to the shape and the angles of the PK9. The wire chair was not put into production but could the papier-mâché model for the wire chair have been the starting point for the shell of the PK9?

This analysis of design and structure makes the chair sound like an intellectual exercise in form, construction and aesthetics but it is all that and it is actually supremely comfortable and the wide generous shape makes it feel generous in its proportions and, although it might seem a rather mundane point, the width means that it feels natural and easy to put the hands palm down on either side to push down when standing up.  However beautiful a chair surely it also has to be strong, stable and comfortable? 

 

bibliography:

Poul Kjærholm, edited by Christoffer Harlang, Keld Helmer-Petersen and Krestine Kjærholm, Arkitektens Forlag (1999)

The Furniture of Poul Kjærholm: Catalogue Raisonne by Michael A. Sheridan (2008)

 

notes:

 * Each year, between 1951 and 1970, the Lunning Prize was awarded two designers chosen from the four Nordic countries and in 1951 the other recipient of the award with Hans Wegner was the Finnish designer Tapio Wirkkala. When Kjærholm was awarded the prize in 1958 his fellow recipient was the Swedish ceramacist Signe Persson-Melin.

**  Between 1956 and 1959 Poul Kjærholm developed 13 designs with Kold and 10 are still in production. Shortly after the death of Poul Kjærholm, from lung cancer at a tragically young age, Ejvind Kold sold his business to Fritz Hansen with the licences for many of the designs and they now produce the PK9.

 *** There are photographs of the exhibition in 1965 in the archive of Danmarks Kunstbibliotek with two views of an arrangement with the table with a round stone top - catalogued as the PK54 - also designed in 1961 - with four chairs.

Fritz Hansen

 

PK12 by Poul Kjærholm 1962

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Kinesiske stole og dampbøjede stole / Chinese chairs and steambent chairs

More than his contemporaries, the designer Poul Kjærholm worked with metal, rather than wood, and generally with flat strips of solid steel that were either kept straight to form frames for chairs or table or bent to shape as the support or for the runners of chairs but with the PK12 made by Kold Chistensen they used steel tubing bent to form the legs and back of the chair in a style that echoes deliberately the form and character of bentwood chairs.

As with a bentwood chair the seat is formed with an enclosing hoop that sits within the legs although here the frame of the seat itself is a steel band. With bentwood the legs sit hard against the outside of the hoop of the seat and are fixed directly to the seat, often by bolts that run through the leg and into or through the frame, but here, for the PK12, there are short neat spacing pieces that are welded between the leg and the seat frame.

The seat itself - in most versions covered with leather - is not round and not an ellipse but is narrower at the back than at the front so it forms what is, in effect, a rounded triangle and the spacing of the back legs, respecting this shape, are much tighter or closer together than the front legs creating a distinctive form when seen straight on and a more dynamic form when the chair is seen from other angles.

The back of the chair has two curves of tube that are horizontal and parallel but not connected … the lower element curved round and then bent down to form the two back legs and an upper tube bent to form the back rest and the arm rests as a single curve and then bent down at the outer ends to run straight down for the front legs of the chair.

In some versions of the PK12 the upper tube of the back is bound round with leather tape.

Normally chairs with vertical legs appear rather narrow or pinched and actually slightly unstable - they can be tipped backwards quite easily if the back legs are not angled or curved outwards - but here the generous width of the chair; its solid weight and the presumed strength of the steel tube together create a strong sense of stability.

The chair photographed here is in the collection of Designmuseum Danmark in Copenhagen and was a prototype from 1962 but books generally give the production date for the chair as 1964.

 

designed in Poul Kjærholm in 1962
produced by E Kold Christensen from 1964

height: 68 cm
width: 63 cm
depth: 52 cm
height of seat: 44 cm

 

Chair by Marcel Breuer who was head of the furniture workshop at the Bauhaus. Tube steel frame with seat and back in wood with cane designed in 1928

 

context:

The best-known furniture in steel tube from the early modern period came from the Bauhaus in Germany and furniture in metal tube, often with a chrome finish, was popular in The Netherlands and France but the style does not seem to have been widely copied in Denmark.

Although there was no major steel production in Denmark, shipbuilding was important with highly-skilled engineering work for making engines so there was certainly the machinery and the technical knowledge to work with steel tube for furniture ... so this must simply reflect a general preference for the work of cabinetmakers in wood rather than for the more industrial look of some furniture in northern Europe in the Art Deco period.

Several Danish designers did use narrow steel tube or bent steel rod for the legs of chairs and tables and there are examples of the use of bent steel tube … Mogen Lassen designed a bold chair with a tubular frame supporting a wicker seat in 1933; in 1967 Henning Larsen produced the FH9230, a striking version of a bentwood armchair in steel, and also for Fritz Hansen in the same year Grete Jalk designed an unusual upholstered chair on a bent tube frame, the FH9000. Hans Wegner used bent steel tube for the legs and the supports of the back of his office chair, the JH502 from 1955, and for the later version the JH522 from 1965 and he also used metal tube for the the Queen Chair and the Ox Chair in 1960 for Erik Jorgensen where the steel forms a base and legs for an upholstered chair rather than the whole framework. The Flag Halyard Chair by Wegner from 1950 has frame, seat and legs in shaped metal tube but in this unique design the seat and back are woven rope and the legs and the supporting frame are expressed as a separate part - by being painted - so the chair is not strictly of the bentwood / bent tube group.

 

CH36 by Hans Wegner 1962

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chair in the collection of Designmuseum Danmark in Copenhagen

 

Shakerstole / Shaker chairs

 

A chair that appears to be simple but actually is very sophisticated - where the design takes as a starting point the Shaker type of chair.

It is part of an interesting trend with Danish furniture design through the whole of the modern period where designers seem to tread a course between being simple and robust as in being a country chair and being simple and functional as in being  a 'modern' chair. Not mutually incompatible ideas but not actually the same when you try to assess the character or the style of the furniture.

The construction here in the CH36 is almost the most basic form possible for a chair - so two vertical front legs and two vertical back legs that are taller (otherwise it would be a stool) with four pieces of wood forming a frame for the seat and four pieces of wood below as stretchers  - to keep apart and keep together the legs - to stop them splaying apart under the weight of a person sitting down - and with a simple piece of wood either fixed between the upper parts of the back legs as here or, even simpler, fixed across the front of the two back legs, as a back rest for the person sitting in the chair.

The most basic chair could be made with squared and planed parts nailed or screwed together. Here all the parts are either turned or shaped and curved.

So where this design is actually incredibly sophisticated is in balancing changes or refinements that have been made for aesthetic reasons with the need to consider the technical details of how the parts of the chair are made and how they are joined together.

The tapered front legs are very close to the form of the legs on the famous Wishbone Chair by Wegner and have the same domed top. The rails of the seat are set down from the top of the leg and the widest part of the leg is at the top and the position of the front and side rails of the seat are staggered so that the tenons of the joins do not weaken the leg too much or split apart. The top of the leg is rounded because most people on standing up will put their hands down to their sides, palm down, and either steady themselves or even press down on the chair as they transfer their weight forward to stand. If you don't think this is important try standing up from a chair with your back kept vertical and without using your hands.

Again, the back legs are also thickest at the centre where the seat and the rails or stretchers below the seat are fixed so mirror the profile of the front legs but taper again towards the top and are also rounded or domed at the top like the front legs. The back rest may look very simple but actually it is curved and also although it is vertical at the legs it gradually angles outwards to the centre to reflect the angle of the upper part of the spine of the person sitting on the chair.

The front and back rails for the seat are set lower than - rather than above - the side rails which forms that much more comfortable hollow or scoop shape of the woven seat. Here the arrangement of the side and front and back rails of the seat allows for the most straightforward form of paper-cord seat with the characteristic X pattern, when seen from the top, where the cords pass over or under each other before going round the opposite rail and returning underneath.

The side rails are deeper than they are wide, for greater strength, and are deeper at the back than at the front to give the same tapered or angled line as on the Wishbone Chair … although on the Wishbone Chair it is the underside of the side stretcher that is level and the top that slopes down to give a slightly different dynamic to that chair when seen from the side whereas here it is the top edge that is level.

The front and back stretchers are staggered with the front set closer to the underside of the seat, so it is possible to sit with the feet tucked slightly back under the seat without the stretcher pushing into the back of the legs. Again this is not just reflecting how we sit but how we stand up from a sitting position: if you stand up when sitting on a box then normally you find your heals are pressed hard against the box-  simply as part of that process of moving forward the centre of gravity.

At the back, the stretcher is set slightly lower than the side stretchers - again so that the mortices do not weaken that point but also you can see here an aesthetic consideration so the back of the chair looks less cramped … Wegner had that often-quoted maxim that a chair should look as beautiful from the back as it does from the front.

 
 

designed by Hans Wegner
manufactured by Carl Hansen & Son

height: 81 cm
width: 52 cm
depth: 48 cm
height of seat: 45 cm

 

Skalstol / Shell Chair by Grete Jalk 1963

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chair by Grete Jalk in Designmuseum Danmark in Copenhagen

 

Skalstole / Shell chairs

Grete Jalk (1920-2005) studied under Kaare Klint and many of her designs are conventional with much of her furniture made by France & Son and by P Jeppesen. The plywood chair, designed in the early 1960s, is unique or almost unique for it is usually paired with side tables of a similar form that came in three sizes and marketed as a nest of tables.

It sounds like a simple concept to design a chair in shaped and folded laminated wood that has just two pieces - one for a slightly curved seat - with the ends bent under and down to support the seat - and the second piece gently curved to form an almost vertical back rest - with the ends tucked around behind and then bent down to the ground - and with the two pieces bolted together. In reality the folds are complex and the plywood shapes look more like something that could only be made from giant sheets of pasta left to dry.  

Because of the complexity of the design originally only 300 were made although the chair is now back in production.

This is perhaps the most imaginative and unusual chair produced during the classic period for modern Danish furniture and shows how materials and techniques of working with wood could be pushed to new limits to create very new types of chair.

 

made originally by P Jeppesen
now made by Lange Production

height: 75 cm
width: 63 cm
depth: 70 cm
height of seat: 33 cm

 

 

the two-part shell chair CH07 by Hans Wegner 1963

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early versions of the chair shown at the exhibition on the work of Hans Wegner at Designmuseum Danmark in 2014

early versions of the chair shown at the exhibition on the work of Hans Wegner at Designmuseum Danmark in 2014 - the chair in the foreground with simple straightforward bending of the back leg and the final split or divided form beyond

 

 

Sometimes good design is about designing something better and sometimes it's about designing something different and, without doubt, it was the exploration of what many could see as unconventional styles and forms that drove forward Danish design through the 1960s and 1970s.

This shell chair by Hans Wegner, designed in 1963, could certainly not be described as conventional as it was one of his most sculptural but one of his most starkly simple designs.

First drawings for the chair show a more squared-off back than was made for the final version with a slight downward curve across the top but with sharp outer corners and that emphasised that the sides of the back rest followed up in line from the angle of the front legs.

There are just four parts to the chair with a wide and curved seat in thick plywood with an outline close to the shape of a segment of orange and a back rest as a separate piece, gently curved and with a complex shape, tapered towards the top, with all corners generously rounded and the angles of the sides set by the angle of the legs below when seen from the front. 

The frame of the legs is in bent wood with two front legs from a single piece of wood that forms a saddle shape to support the seat. There is a single back leg formed from a single elongated triangle of wood that is taken back from the cross bar of the front legs, under the seat, and then first up behind the back rest to support it and set its angle and then swept back down to the ground. 

In the prototypes these leg pieces were a single uniform thickness but in the final design they are split and divided at crucial points at the curve between the front leg and the part that runs under the seat and at the point on the back leg where it reaches its highest point and then is curved sharply to run down to the ground.

 

The chair CH07 was reintroduced by Carl Hansen in 1998

designed by Hans Wegner (1914-2007)
made by Carl Hansen

overall width: 92 cm
overall depth: 83 cm
height: 74 cm
front edge of seat: 35 cm

 

PK24 / ECK24 by Poul Kjærholm 1965

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photographed at Designmuseum Danmark in 2015 in their exhibition 'Reclining'

 

 

This has to be one of the most elegant recliners and one of the most stripped down and spare. It is simply a frame in sprung steel covered with a taut skin of woven cane and supported on the thinnest possible steel frame. 

There is a separate frame of steel that folds under the centre section of the seat - running parallel to the cane work but separated from it by spacers. This forms what looks like a sledge or from the side runners that rest on a simple frame … a third rectangle in flat steel strip but with the ends bent upwards but at an angle to form a cradle.

The round table PK54 designed by Kjærholm in1963 - with square frames in steel slotted together to form a cube - or the glass table PK61 designed in 1956 - with four L-shaped pieces of steel together forming a frame and legs - play the same intellectual game to produce sophisticated three-dimensional forms out of minimal elements … almost like an artist marking an edge or a shadow with a slightly heavier weight of line, to define a volume, and then obliterating everything else to rely just on that emphasis of the edge.

Here the use of cane is equally unique. Not the material itself, of course, but on all other furniture with cane work you are aware of a frame first that is filled in with a lattice of cane - the cane does not exist without the frame. On the PK24 you see first a sheet of woven cane and it is only when you look again that you work out what holds the curved form because without the steel, keeping that shape would be impossible. All that is visible of the steel frame of the seat and back is a small square of exposed metal at each corner.

The chair comes also in leather and the same holds true … you see first a swoosh of leather and then have to work out how that shape is formed and held.  

There is a leather covered head rest with both chairs but where other recliners have pillows held in place by knots or belts with buckles this head rest is a simple roll with a counterweight of steel on two straps slung over the top of the back rest.

 

 

designed by Poul Kjærholm (1929-1980)
PK24 made first by E Kold Christensen and then from 1982 by Fritz Hansen Eftf

steel, cane, leather-covered head rest

height: 87 cm
width: 67 cm
length: 155 cm

exhibition Reclining at Designmuseum Danmark in 2015

Fritz Hansen

 

Den Lille Stålstol / The Little Steel Chair by Hans Wegner 1965

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chair in the collection of Designmuseum Danmark

 

 

Wegner first designed a steel framed chair with a version of the shaped back of the Cow Horn Chair in 1955 and that was shown in an exhibition for the new Bellahøjhusene housing development in Copenhagen and then shown at H55 in Helsingborg in Sweden in the same year. The design - with three prototypes showing different ways to join the wood for the back rest - were made with Fritz Hansen but were not put into production.

This version, The Little Steel Chair or Minimal Chair , PP 701, was designed for Wegner's own house in Gentofte in 1965 and the shaped back is a smaller version of the Bull Horn Chair - the chair with longer arm rests than the Cow Horn.

The curved back rest with arm rests are formed from four pieces of wood cut from planks 45mm thick and the right and left arm rest and the lower and upper sections are cut from the same plank and cut in line. As the grain runs in different directions and cannot match then a contrasting veneer is used between each joint and for the distinctive cross at the centre of the back.

The chair was shown by Johannes Hansen at the Cabinetmakers' Exhibition in 1965.

PP Møbler

 

chair photographed at Design Werck in Copenhagen

 

 

designed by Hans Wegner (1914-2007)
cabinetmakers Johannes Hansens, PP Møbler

oak, ash, maple, or cherry
detail/veneer in original chair was wenge
stainless steel
leather

height: 70 cm
width: 63 cm
depth: 46 cm
height of seat: 45 cm

Lilien / The Lily / FH3208 by Arne Jacobsen 1970

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Chair 3208 in the collection of Designmuseum Danmark

 

 

3108 - an early version of the chair - was designed by Arne Jacobsen in 1961 but The Lily - or at least a first version of The Lily without arms - was shown at the Scandinavian Furniture Fair in Copenhagen in 1969 and the final form with arms was shown at the furniture fair the following year. The chair was also known as Mågen or The Sea Gull.

Clearly the Lily is related to the other shell chairs in plywood that Jacobsen designed - including The Ant from 1952 and the Series 7 chairs from1955 - but the Lily has a more marked shape with a much narrower waist between the seat and the back that was there to make possible a more pronounced curve of the shell. Carsten Thau and Kjeld Vindum, in their book on the work of Jacobsen,* suggest that this created so much tension in the shell that up to 75% that were made had to be rejected.

One version of the Series 7 Chair had narrow arm rests on what are almost stalks extending up from the back leg - a curious reinterpretation of the back post of a traditional chair in wood - but on the Lily Chair, the arm rests are exaggerated - almost flamboyant for Jacobsen - and make the chair more sculptural and much more dramatic.

Unlike so many of the his contemporaries, Jacobsen was an architect who designed furniture outside the world of the cabinetmakers … even Poul Kjærholm, the designer who moved his work furthest from traditional cabinetmaking and closest to engineering had started his training as an apprentice to a cabinetmaker in Gronbech in 1948.

Jacobsen showed his furniture just once at Cabinetmakers' Exhibition - in 1933 in collaboration with Fleming Lassen - and that was not a success with the critics. Perhaps this chair is the one from this period that is closest to industrial or product design and it is certainly a very good example of how Danish designers in the post-war period broke with all conventions for what a chair should look like or how it should be made.

note:

 * Arne Jacobsen, Carsten Thau and Kjeld Vindum, The Danish Architectural Press (2001)

 

designed by Arne Jacobsen (1902-1971)
made by Fritz Hansen

height: 76 cm
width: 60 cm
depth: 52 cm
height of seat: 44 cm

 

pp63 by Hans Wegner 1975

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Chair pp52 designed by Hans Wegner in 1975 ... later called the Ferry Chair after the chair was purchased by DFDS for a ferry on the service across the North Sea

Chair pp63 is one of a series that were designed by Hans Wegener for the cabinetmakers PP Møbler in the 1970s. It dates from 1976 and remained in production until 2001. 

The frame is a wider, so slightly more open and generous version of the well-known Ferry Chair - pp52 and pp62 - but the most obvious difference is the pattern of the weave for the seat in paper cord. 

On the earlier Wishbone Chair from 1950, and for most chairs by Wegner with a paper cord seat, the rails of the seat are staggered - the side rails set higher than the front rail - and that determines the pattern of the weave with a distinct diagonal intersection where the cord is taken across the top, right over the rail and back on the underside.

On the pp63 the front rail of the seat is shaped, forming a slight hollow to the profile and curving forward at the front, and the mortices for the tenons of the front and side rails are at the same level forming a thinner profile. The cord is taken across the top in a single layer  - so not returning underneath - and the pattern is a basket weave with paired cords taken front to back but widely spaced with a line of knots at the front and back where the cords pass over the rail once, are turned back and round the rail with 6 or 7 strands to form a space and then taken back to the back rail passing over and under pairs of cords running left to right. These paired cords, running left right across the seat, go over the side rail and round underneath and round a metal tension bar, just inside the side rail, and then back and round the outside of the side rail before returning across the top of the seat.

Stretchers below the seat are straight - taller than thick - and rounded at the top and bottom and are set quite low on the sides and across the back strengthening the impression of a robust frame for the chair seat.

The legs are set vertically - rather than angled out as on The Round Chair and Wishbone Chair - round in cross section below the seat, so like a pole, but above they are flattened off on two sides … in part to make them look less hefty but also as the way to reduce the size of the tenon at the top where the leg is housed into the underside of a back rail.

This curved top rail, forming a back rest and arm rails in a single piece, is set horizontally … on the Wishbone Chair and for pp201, the first chair in this series, the curved back rail is set at an angle rising up from the front to the centre of the back as on a Chinese Chair. More comfortable and deeper support for the spine on the pp63 is provided by a flat face cut along the centre of the top rail and with a shaped crest added above, to make the back rest deeper. Made in two pieces there is an inlay of dark wood between the rail and the crest and a distinctive key pieces in dark wood between the two halves of the crest.

The back rest has a shaped profile so the back face is hollow rather than flat. 

By setting the legs vertical, cutting the mortice-and-tenon joints was simplified and by removing the taper on the legs turning was more straightforward and the stretchers are straight so curiously, although there are more parts to the chair, in many ways it appears simpler and more modern or less formal than The Round Chair and was certainly easier to make and wasted less wood so, presumably, was less expensive to make.

 
 

pp63

designed by Hans Wegner (1914-2007)
cabinetmakers PP Møbler

oak or ash
the seat of the models pp62 pp63 are paper cord and pp52 is upholstered

height: 71 cm
width : 58 cm ?
depth: 48 cm
height of seat: 43 cm

 

The Round Chair designed by Hans Wegner in 1949 

CH37 designed in 1962

pp208 from 1972 with the seat pad supported on the front and back stretchers that are set at a higher level than on the version with a seat in cord

the shaped front stretcher on a Chinese Chair designed by Wegner in 1945 - essentially the form of stretcher used to support the upholstered seat on the pp203, pp208, pp52 and pp58 - much less baulky than a traditional upholstered seat over a separate frame - the stretcher is rarely seen straight on and is much less obvious when seen from above ... and of course is completely hidden when there is someone sitting in the chair  

This series of chairs designed by Hans Wegner for the cabinetmakers PP Møbler - starting in 1969 and continuing through to one of the last commercial designs by Wegner in 1987 - is important because it shows a tight sequence of variations that are determined by technical developments in shaping and bending wood and by clear developments in understanding and applying ideas about ergonomics - what makes a chair comfortable - but also a strong sense of changing fashions. The designs are in pale wood rather than dark or exotic wood such as mahogany or teak and are less formal than the more expensive dining chairs produced through the 1940s and 1950s. Rationalisation of the design also makes them a more commercial proposition.

The starting point seems to have been to combine the best features of the Chinese-style chairs from the 1940s and The Round Chair from 1949 but the aim was also to produce a simpler chair that was less formal and more appropriate for contemporary taste. 

There appears to be an intermediate step for in 1962, Wegner had designed a chair - the CH37 - that had straight, vertical legs - so not tapered and not angled out - with stretchers to create a strong frame for the seat but the back rest was of the Shaker type with a thin curved piece of wood so, although it looks rather dated and too much like a country chair, it must have been relatively comfortable.

Then, designed in 1969, chair pp201 was the first chair specifically for the cabinetmaker PP Møbler. Wegner focused on making production more efficient but without compromising quality. It has the vertical legs that are straight and with straight rather than turned stretchers that are rectangular in section but rounded at the top and bottom and so similar to the stretchers on the Chinese Chair from 1945 and the Wishbone Chair from 1950. For this chair, however, the back rest is circular in section and bent round in a single curve, as on a Chinese Chair, flattened at the middle but with a deeper section added below the curve to form a deeper and more comfortable back rest and with a dark veneer separating the two parts and a single block of dark wood as a key at the centre. 

That chair has a paper cord seat but there is also a version - the pp203 - with an upholstered seat. This does not have a separate frame for the seat but simply an upholstered pad that is supported by moving up the stretchers across the front and back that are also shaped so that at each end they have a shoulder and step down before they are joined into the leg.

A version of this chair was produced in 1972 where the same shape of back rest was cut from a single piece of wood and then bent to shape to simplify the work. Model pp209 had a seat in paper cord and the pp209 had an upholstered seat.

The next stage, the third in the sequence, was the pp52 or Ferry Chair from 1975, also with a leather seat, and a version - the pp62 - with paper cord seat. The frame of the chair, with straight legs and stretchers, was similar but the curve of the back is set horizontal - moving the front end towards the table up and the centre of the back down slightly but enough to change the level where it cuts across the spine so the additional section of wood, added to make the back rest deeper, and therefore more comfortable, was moved from under the curve to on top of the curve.

It was this version that was ordered by DFDS ferries in 1978 …. and with over 800 chairs purchased that is still the largest single order won by PP Møbler.

Final stage came in 1987 with the pp68 that has a single piece of wood for the back that is steam bent and a cord seat.

That design was modified further in 1987 to create the pp58 that has a padded seat and the pp68 with a seat in paper cord but the front legs finish at the seat and the back rest or back rail is supported on the upper parts of the back legs and it curves round and extends to short arms like the Bull Chair. There was even a version, the pp58/3, that has three legs and stacks.

pp63 table.jpeg
 

showroom display by PP Møbler to show how the wood for the back rest of the PP68 is bent, shaped and finished

 
 
PP63.jpg

pp201 1969 onwards

pp209 1972-2004

pp62 1975 onwards

pp68 1987 onwards

 

PP112 by Hans Wegner 1978

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Windsorstole / Windsor chairs

chair photographed in Designmuseum Danmark

 
 

height: 76cm
width: 70cm
depth: 62cm
height of seat: 38cm

Hans Wegner, through his long career, continually returned to ideas or details of construction … not because he lacked new ideas but what you can see clearly is that as he developed a design he made a sequence of changes or refinements that almost form a route or map of rational consequences through the design process so make one part slightly thicker, and therefore stronger, and it might make it possible, for instance, to make another part thinner or even to remove a piece completely that would otherwise have been needed to strengthen the frame … such as a cross rail. Returning to an  idea, Wegner could then take the design through another route or sequence to create a very different chair.

PP Møbler, who make the 112 chair, describe it in their catalogue as a hybrid because here Wegner is combining the line and the single curve of the back of what is normally described as a Chinese style chair with the vertical rails of a Windsor chair … the common form for a Chinese chair is to have a broad curved splat at the centre of the back between the seat and the rail of the back. Here the front and the back legs are taken up to support the back rail and the space at the sides and the back are filled with vertical spindles. These are not straight dowels but turned so they are slightly thicker at the centre with a slight taper to the ends. 

The seat is relatively wide and slightly lower than on a side chair or dining chair so the 112 also has a slightly different sitting position closer to that of an easy chair.

There are stretchers to the sides and to the front and back and these are taller than they are wide - to give a tall but relatively narrow mortice into the legs - and are rounded across the top and the bottom. The side stretchers are deeper than those to the front and back, giving additional strength to the frame, with the front stretcher set up higher from the floor and closer to the seat - so the person sitting in the chair can tuck their feet back under without pressing against a stretcher. The shape and the arrangement of these stretchers is different to the traditional Windsor chair where,  generally, there are turned and tapered stretchers, similar in profile to but thicker than the spindles, and often the front and back stretchers are omitted and then there is a cross stretcher between the side stretchers to form an H shape of stretchers under the seat.

The back rail of the seat of the PP112 is rounded and the front and side rails of the seat gently curved with the back narrower than the front.

All four legs are thicker towards the centre and have a distinct elbow or angle at the thickest point to take the mortices for the frame of the seat. The legs taper to the foot and to the top where they are housed in the underside of the back rail.

The front rail of the seat is set below the side rails, in part to stagger the position of the mortice-and-tenon joints in the leg and partly to create the distinct scooped front line. As the seat is paper cord, this staggering of the rails creates a very distinct arrangement at the front corners and also the unusual combination of cord seat and Windsor rail means that there is a complicated arrangement with some cords being taken down in front of the spindle but most going on and around the rail before returning underneath the seat. This gives the distinct stripe effect on the outer faces of the side and back rails with bundles of cord alternating with exposed wood.

This complicated pattern in the weave of the seat must make the work itself much more difficult particularly in making sure that the tension in the cord is constant … if the cords are not tight they will shift around the frame and sag but if the tension is irregular then the cords will tend to bunch up to form ridges across the seat.

The back rail of the seat is set lower than the front of the seat so that there is a more pronounced backward lean … again appropriate for what is an armchair or easy chair rather than a side chair or dining chair.

The centre of the back rail is flattened off - so that it does not dig into the spine or shoulder blades - and the ends of the top back rail and the bottom ends of the legs are cut almost flat - rather than being rounded - adding to the character of the chair. It gives the chair a simpler and cleaner look making it more modern and more robust. This might seem like an insignificant detail but look at how Wegner rounded the ends of the arms and the foot of the legs on the Wishbone Chair or the Round Chair to create a different and rather more sophisticated character or feel to the finished chair. That is not to imply that the PP112 is unsophisticated … it is a very careful design that creates a strong honest country look … and after all, that is exactly what the original Windsor chairs were … strong, honest chairs that were the staple furniture in a good farmhouse or cottage kitchen. 

 

PK 15 Poul Kjærholm 1979

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chair in the collection of Designmuseum Danmark

 

Kinesiske stole og dampbøjede stole / Chinese chairs and steambent chairs

 

A chair in compressed beech that has a more traditional bentwood form and is interesting because it echoes and almost mimics the earlier chair in metal tube, the PK 12, that was designed by Kjærholm in 1962.

The basic form of the chair has one long curve forming the back and arms of the chair that is then turned straight down to form the front legs and an inner and lower curve, parallel but much narrower and turning down to the back legs. With less strength in the timber over any length, the PK 15 has two features that were not required in the steel chair … a small link piece at the centre of the back and an inner loop just below the seat and inside the legs to make the frame rigid and to stop the legs spreading outwards when someone sits down or moves in the seat.

In the first bentwood chairs from the Austrian company Thonet in the 19th century the seats were a circle but here the shape of the seat is broader and flatter across the front but not as pronounced as a Reuleaux triangle or even as distinct as the earlier metal chair but I don’t know if these follows a recognised mathematical form such as the super eclipse used by some designers but what is clear is that the success of the design depends on a very very careful graded use of various curves or quadrants in the bending of the chair frame.

The seat is in woven cane … a well-established and popular material in Denmark.

Made originally by Kold Christensen and more recently by PP Møbler.

 


designed by Poul Kjærholm
made originally by Kold Christensen and more recently by PP Møbler.

ash with cane seat

height: 70 cm
width: 50 cm
depth: 46 cm
height of seat: 44 cm

 

Series 8000 Chair by Thygesen and Sørensen 1981

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chair in the collection of Designmuseum Danmark

 

Kinesiske stole og dampbøjede stole / Chinese chairs and steambent chairs

 

The 8000 Series Chair by Rud Thygesen (born 1932) and Johnny Sørensen (born 1944) was designed in 1980 for Café Victor in Copenhagen. It is said to be a reworking of the famous bentwood cafe chairs that were produced by Thonet in Austria in the late 19th century but it also looks to the rather different use of wood and rather different developments in wood technology from Finland in the 1930s in the work of Alvar Aalto and his experiments with laminated wood and plywood.

The light, compact chair by Thygesen and Sørensen has a round seat that is formed with an outer ring or frame in wood that is rebated to take circles of plywood in the top and bottom and both are slightly concave or dished and held apart by an internal spacing piece at the centre. Sinking the plywood into a rebate gives the edge of the seat a thin and clean profile.  

There are four legs in wood that are bent at the top to form a knee or elbow and they are housed into the side of the seat. The upper end of the leg is tapered to form a tenon and the housing in the seat is also shaped. An aqueous glue is used to fix the leg in place so the parts swell to make a secure join. The designers patented this system of assembly for fixing the chair together without using screws or dowels. *

The back of the 8000 Chair has a gentle curve - wider than the seat itself - and the centre is flat on the face to provide a more comfortable support for the spine. The top of the vertical supports for the back and the bottom part of the legs are flared or curved slightly outwards to give a more sophisticated profile but also give the chairs more stability.

Light but strong for commercial use, the cafe chairs can be stacked neatly in a tight and vertical stack. One promotion drawing shows the chair with the back hooked over the edge of a table top to lift it up clear of the floor when cleaning the room.

 

designed by Rud Thygesen (1932-2019) and Johnny Sørensen (b 1944)
produced by Magnus Olesen
made in laminated and lacquered beech

height: 70 cm
width: 53 cm
depth: 40 cm
height of seat: 44 cm

note:

* In contrast, for Stool 60 - and the chair in the same series by Alvar Aalto - the top of the leg is bent over to form a knee with a short horizontal section and the seat is fixed on top of the legs with screws up through the legs into the underside of the seat.