When one thinks of Mid Century Modern, one of the things that comes to mind is the chair. So many of the great designers of the time created chairs that are still admired and desired to this day. Go online and do a search for Mid Century Modern furniture and the list you will find contains site after site of these great chairs. We have created a list of some of the great chair designs of the period.

The criteria used in creating this list are these:

• The chair was critically acclaimed.
• The chair was popular.
• The chair was influential and reproduced or provoked further design.
• The chair design is still produced today.

Number 15

The Egg Chair

Arne Jacobsen designed the Egg Chair in 1958 for the Royal Hotel in Copenhagen. Jacobsen had strong ideas concerning the integration of architectural and interior design, an idea he shared with Frank Lloyd Wright. The Egg Chair is on this  list because of the iconic nature of this chair. Not only is it reproduced to this day, but it has spawned a whole genre of chairs that are a variation on this form. Believed to be inspired by Eero Saarinen’s The Womb Chair, the Egg acquired some of the same traits. The Egg Chair says Danish Modern as well as Mid Century Modern!

Number 14

Wassily Chair

Known also as Model B3 Chair, only later did it become known as the “Wassily Chair” due to the artist Wassily Kandinsky having a copy of this chair in his personal quarters. Kandinsky and Marcel Breuer, the chair’s designer, were both a part of the faculty of the Bauhaus. Designed in 1925, this chair persisted in popularity and was part of the modern movement in the 1950s and 1960s. This chair is quite ubiquitous in modern and contemporary interior design. It is not unusual to see this chair on tv or in films any day of the week. This design’s staying power is phenomenal.

 

Number 13

 Tripolina

The Tripolina Chair is included on our list of the 15 top chairs for one reason: This chair inspired the Butterfly Chair. What would a list of modern chairs be without the Butterfly Chair! The Tripolina Chair was patented by Joseph B. Fenby in the US in 1881. The offspring of the Tripolina, the Butterfly Chair was developed by the Austral Group in Buenos Aires in 1938. The Butterfly has graced the interiors of the working class to the rich. Depending on the materials used, the chair can be inexpensive or adorned with rich materials and used either outdoors or inside, in the college dorm room or the veranda of a 20 room mansion. Many other folding designs have sprung from the Tripolina, so numerous and so pervasive that a book could be written just covering these designs.

Number 12

GF 40/4 Stacking Chair

The GF 40/4 Stacking Chair is an all American original designed by David Rowland in 1964. Surprisingly, this is the first chair to compactly  stack! In fact, the designation 40/4 means that 40 chairs will stack to 4 feet. Hardly imaginable that no one had considered stacking chairs this way  before this time. It is beyond belief that stacking chairs in this way had not always existed. David Rowland was an industrial designer, so it is easy to imagine why he came up with the idea that a mass produced item that could be conveniently stored in less space would be highly desirable. Does it even need to be mentioned how this design, which turned out to be comfortable as well, spread and transformed into many other designs? A whole industry sprung up from the idea of the compact stacking chair.

 

Number 11

Plia Stacking Chair

Here we have another stacking chair. This time by an Italian, Giancarlo Piretti in 1967. This chair is a classic. We have all seen this exact form or variations on this form many times. It is so delightfully simple the wonder is that it had not appeared sooner. Although less comfortable than the GF 40/4 Chair, the remarkable convenience in terms of transportation, storage and set up etches this chair in the annals of modern design. Yet it also has a beauty that goes beyond just setting it out for special events. It can easily reside outside the closet as a permanent part of the collection.

 

Number 10

Panton Stacking Chairs

First produced in 1965, this chair was the creation of Danish designer, Verner Panton. The first chair fashioned of a continuous piece of plastic, it’s wonderful, sculptural form is a delight to behold. The notion of a legless chair was an inspiration in itself. The original chair was rather heavy and the fiberglass materials used required extensive finishing. Today, this chair is produced with lighter, more durable materials than previous iterations. The idea of a plastic chair was not original. Mies van der Rohe had some ideas in this direction. However, Panton beat everyone else to the finish line with this beauty. Of course, the use of plastic for chairs is common today thanks in large part to the Panton Chair.

 

Number 9

Brno Chair

The Model MR50 chair, designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich 1929-30, is another museum classic. With the ultimate definition of “clean” lines, the seat and back, due to the C shape of the supporting structure, seem to hover in air. Like other chairs on this list, this chair has been copied or used as the starting point of other designs many times. The Brno Chair can be seen at the Museum of Modern Art and many Mid Century Modern houses.

Number 8

Grand Confort Chair

As a response to the traditional club chair, Le Corbusier designed this remarkable chair along with  Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand in 1928. Shaped into a cube, it mirrored Le Corbusier’s love of Cubism. This chair has an almost architectural look with it’s bulky hulk pressing down on the thin steel legs. It is not coincidence that Le Corbusier is known for post and lintel, International Style architectural works such as Villa Savoye. Though one might find some criticism in the obese form of this chair sitting on such skinny legs, this chair is very popular and an essential part of the Mid Century Modern interior.

Number 7

Chaise Longue

Designed by Le Corbusier, Charlotte Perriand and Pierre Jeanneret in 1928, this chaise has been repeated many times. Popular and well-known, it has found it’s way into many homes around the world. Unlike the Grand Confort Chair, this chair is light and has an upward, circular sweep most of the length of the chair. Iconic as well as useable, this Chaise Longue is easily recognizable.

 

Number 6

Lounge Chair 670

 Charles and Ray Eames designed this chair for a high-end market with the Herman Miller Furniture Company. Made of bent plywood and leather, the lounge chair exudes Mid Century Modern. If one has never seen this chair, then a trip to civilization is in order because you must be living in the outback. Bent plywood is one of the favorite materials of Mid Century Modern furniture and this Eames design is partly responsible. This is one design that speaks to the Mid Century Modern impulse.

Number 5

Dining Chairs 

Another Eames design, this chair came in unarmed and armed format as well as a rocking chair. Originally in fiberglass in 1950, the chairs are now produced with more safe and recyclable materials. Sleek, light and available in many configurations and colors, these chairs are emulated in so many different ways. We find these chairs with rolling office chair bases, bases like the Tulip Chair, thin metal legs of all sorts, and the list goes on and on. This is a classic chair so practical that it will be produced for many years to come.

Number 4

Aluminum Group

Eames again! You may have seen these series of chairs or chairs based on the designs of the different configurations, but you associate these chairs with office furniture. Ironically, the original design was for outdoor use and was a challenge to Eero Saarinen and Alexander Girard who were designing a home and needed an outdoor chair. They asked the Eames to design one. The sleek design of this series of chairs and the careful use of materials leads to a comfortable and extremely practical chair still quite popular. This series of chairs are still sold, of course, by the Herman Miller Furniture Company who originally commissioned their production in 1958. These beautiful chairs come in a wide variety of colors, materials and configurations.

 

Number 3

Cesca

The first chair of its kind, designed in 1928 by Marcel Breuer, has been widely produced, numbering into the hundreds of thousands. Named Cesca in the 1960s, this chair, Model B32, runs in price from $39 to hundreds of dollars. Not patented by Breuer, companies have taken advantage and reproduced this chair using many different methods of varying quality. The Cesca is comfortably in place whether in the home or in the office, which tells you one of the great features of this chair, that it is so versatile. This chair comes in armed and unarmed versions and, of course, has spawned many variations on this theme. An article about this chair appears on the New York Times website.

 

Number 2

Basculant

The Basculant Arm Chair, Model B31, designed by Le Corbusier in 1929, portrays the designer’s philosophy of furniture as “appliances” to be place in “machines for living”. This chair is composed of just two basic materials: tubular steel and canvas. Details are kept to a minimum and the design is airy and ergonomic. How iconic of Mid Century Modern! Furthermore, the chair doesn’t dominate space and is an easy fit with all sorts of design styles. These days, the chair can be purchased with all sorts of materials such as cowhide and leather. Many still prefer the original canvas.

 

Number 1

The Barcelona Chair

This is the choice for number 1, the Barcelona Chair, work of Le Corbusier and Lilly Reich. Designed in 1929 for the International Exhibition in Barcelona, Spain as part of the German Pavilion decoration, this chair found it’s way to the Villa Tugendhat, a building designed by Mies van der Rohe in the city of Brno. Light, simple, sleek and sculptural sums up the beautiful design of this amazing chair. Found in many public and private spaces, this chair is so unassuming, so capable of finding a place in all sorts of decor, that it can be taken for granted. Yet it exudes the Mid Century Modern impulse of relaxed informality and beauty of form with practicality of function.

The chairs designed during the mid century weren’t all modern, but the iconic images of the age include these clever and useful objects that fulfill aesthetic and utilitarian purposes even today. Many times they were simple, beautiful, original and revolutionary and a symbol of the Mid Century Modern impulse.

 

 

 

Howard Bosler

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