8 Iconic Chairs by Hans WegnerBy / Published by – February 11, 2014Scores of craftsmen can build you a chair, but Danish icon Hans Wegner earns the rare distinction of having created the Chair. His Round Chair (1949)—with its single, curved back rail forming a parabola of finely shaped wood—was a stylish shot heard round the world, which heralded the arrival of a major design talent and made Danish design a cover story in the United States.Danish furniture designer Hans Wegner in his studio. Photo courtesy PP MØBLER.Son of a cobbler, Wegner started out as a teenage apprentice with cabinetmaker H.F. Stahlberg before studying at the Copenhagen School of Arts and Craft and the Danish Design School, where he refined the hallmarks of his style, often called organic functionality. During the course of his heralded career, he designed more than 500 different chairs, with more than 100 of them entering mass production. Here's a look at our top ten. Hans J. Wegner Wishbone Chair | Shop Hans J. Wegner Shell Chair |
ShopCarl Hansen & Søn CH29 Sawbuck Chair | ShopThe Round Chair from 1949 is one of Wegner's most iconic pieces and a highlight of Danish design. "Round One" is minimalist art reduced to its bare essentials. It required incredible craftsmanship to create such smooth curves—each of the crescent-shaped armrests are fashioned from a block of wood, and interior mortise-and-tenons hide the connection between the arms and legs. Famously, when Kennedy and Nixon sweated it out during the first televised Presidential debate, they were both sitting on Wegner’s design. Manufactured by PP Møbler. Photo by Jens Mourits Sørensen."A chair is to have no backside. It should be beautiful from all angles." —Hans Wegner The Wishbone Chair (1949), also known as the Y Chair, marries a hand-woven seat and steam-bent frame. The chair, an undisputed modern icon, has been in continuous production since its introduction in 1950. Inspired by portraits of Danish merchants sitting in Ming chairs, this was the culmination of a series of chairs created in the ‘40s.
Photo courtesy Carl Hansen & Son.The lush design for the Flag Halyard Chair (1950) was supposedly inspired by a day at the beach, when Wegner was slowing carving himself a spot in the sand to relax. Lounging is supported by 240 meters of flag line strung through a steel frame and sheepskin covering—those coveting this chair can even reserve their own sheepskin. bining the best traits of a bench and a butler, Hans Wegner’s 1953 Valet chair is the one piece of midcentury-modern furniture that the fastidiously turned-out chap overlooks at his peril. Marrying formal elegance—these handsome curves have been handcrafted in PP Møbler’s Danish workshop since it took over production in 1982—with a surprising functionalism, the Valet chair all but does away with the need for Jeeves. Initially a four-legged chair, Wegner decided to trim the final product and arrived at a tripod design, though he maintained the initial design when Danish King Frederick IX requested his own. Manufactured by PP Møbler.The public was initially reluctant to accept the Three-Legged Shell Chair (1963), an edgier piece of work, from Wegner, which debuted at the 1963 Furniture Guild Exhibition in Copenhagen, but has become more attracted to the wavy, airy design since the chair was reintroduced in 1998.
Photo courtesy of Carl Hansen & Son.Often referred to as one of the designer’s favorite pieces, the leather Ox chair (1960), perched on chromed steel supports, shows modern design doesn’t always need to be so "dreadfully serious." The inflated shapes of Picasso’s paintings supposedly inspired the shape of this piece, which -- true to form if you’re taking Surrealism as a reference point -- initially were sold with or without horns.During a Danish furniture trade show, Dr. Eigill Snorrason critiqued the industry for not paying enough attention to ergonomics. The Swivel Chair (1955) Wegner’s rejoinder of sorts, an elegant backrest of hand-carved wood that’s been compared to a gently bent propeller. The smooth lines, thin profile and wheels invite a sure-footed slide across any office. Photo by Jens Mourits Sørensen.@patricksissonDuring the course of his career writing about music and design, Patrick Sisson has made Stefan Sagmeister late for a date and was scolded by Gil Scott-Heron for asking too many questions.
His work has appeared in Pitchfork, Nothing Major, Wax Poetics, Stop Smiling and Chicago Magazine.Download our iOS AppAdvertise on Dwell Hans Wegner chair in the Centre Pompidou, Paris Hans Jørgensen Wegner, (April 2, 1914 – January 26, 2007), was a world-renowned Danish furniture designer.[1] His high quality and thoughtful work, along with a concerted effort from several of his manufacturers,[2] contributed to the international popularity of mid-century Danish design. His style is often described as Organic Functionality, a modernist school with emphasis on functionality. This school of thought arose primarily in Scandinavian countries with contributions by Poul Henningsen, Alvar Aalto, and Arne Jacobsen.[2] In his lifetime he designed over 500 different chairs, over 100 of which were put into mass production and many of which have become recognizable design icons. Born to cobbler Peter M. Wegner in Tønder, in southern Denmark,[4] he worked as a child apprentice to master cabinetmaker H. F. Stahlberg.
He soon discovered he had a feeling for wood and developed an affinity towards the material. Finishing his apprenticeship at 17 he remained in the workshop for another three years before joining the army. He went to technical college after serving in the military, and then to the Danish School of Arts and Crafts and the Architectural Academy in Copenhagen. In Copenhagen he became acquainted with the city's Carpenters' Guild Furniture Exhibits, started in 1927. The exhibits were a laboratory for experimentation between Master Cabinetmakers such as Johannes Hansen, L. Pontoppidan, Niels Vodder, Jacob Kjær, A. J. Iversen, Moos and Rudolf Rasmussen and the best architects of the time, such as Kaare Klint, Vilhelm Lauritzen, Ole Wanscher and Mogens Voltelen. These annual exhibits gave Wegner a first-hand experience of what the combination of workmanship and design could produce. Wegner decided to become a designer with the aim of producing and selling his furniture. Therefore, in 1936, he began studies at what is now The Danish Design School, with O. Mølgaard Nielsen as teacher.
Even his earliest objects, like an armchair with sloping armrests like relaxed wrists (a 1937 design for an exhibit at the Museum of Decorative Arts), exhibited Wegner's approach of "stripping the old chairs of their outer style and letting them appear in their pure construction." Arne Jacobsen and Erik Møller had established a studio together to design and build Aarhus City Hall. In 1938 Wegner was employed in Aarhus, first under architects Erik Møller and Flemming Lassen and then in 1940 under Jacobsen and Møller. Wegner's task was to design the furniture for the City Hall. Wegner worked for some time for Arne Jacobsen, a successful Danish architect and designer. Wegner was in charge of the furniture in the Aarhus City Hall, which Jacobsen designed.[4] After some years under Jacobsen, Wegner started his own company. Along with fellow architect Børge Mogensen, he designed furniture for FDB (a Danish chain of grocery stores), spearheaded by Erik Kold - who founded an organization of Danish furniture makers that launched Danish design abroad.
In his later years Wegner became more attached to PP Møbler (which produces many of pieces originally designed for Johannes Hansen) and for whom he designed several chairs late in his life. He remained active throughout his life. An example of his later work is the "Hoop Chair", originally designed in 1965 with a steel tube base and finally put into production made entirely in wood in 1985 (for PP Møbler). Wegner retired from public life only in the last decade of his life. Wegner received several major design prizes, from the Lunning prize in 1951 and the Grand Prix of the Milan Triennale in the same year, to the Prince Eugen medal in Sweden and the Danish Eckersberg medal. In 1959, he was made honorary Royal designer for industry by the Royal Society of Arts in London.[5] His furniture is present in multiple international collection including the Museum of Modern Art in N.Y. and the Die Neue Sammlung in Munich. Wegner's designs were manufactured by several manufacturers, including Getama, AP Stolen, Johannes Hansen, Andreas Tuck, Ry Mobler, Fredericia Stolefabrik, Carl Hansen & Sons, Fritz Hansen, PP Mobler and Erik Jorgensen.
Many of Wegner's wooden chairs are characterized by traditional joinery techniques including mortise and tenons, finger joints, and sculpted elements such as armrests and seat supports. Wegner also utilized traditional construction for upholstered pieces, and often mixed materials such as solid wood, plywood, metal, upholstery, caning, and papercord. Wegner said of his work "I have always wanted to make unexceptional things of an exceptionally high quality..."[3] The key designs featured here are known for taking traditional elements and pushing them to extreme tolerances and distillations. "Many foreigners have asked me how we made the Danish style. And I've answered that it...was rather a continuous process of purification, and for me of simplification, to cut down to the simplest possible elements of four legs, a seat and combined top rail and arm rest." "The chair does not exist. The good chair is a task one is never completely done with." "A chair is to have no backside.