APPRECIATION / Sitting the test of time / Danish furniture designer Hans J. Wegner died last month at 92, but his work lives on Wishbone chair designed by Hans Wegner in 1949. Shown in home of Rodney Friedman in Belvedere The San Francisco Chronicle Photo taken on 12/9/04, in BELVEDERE, CA. Ran on: 01-05-2005 John Kennedy sits in &quo;The Chair&quo; while he looks over notes before debating Richard Nixon on television in 1960. A chair designed by Hans Wegner in 1961, (AP 46 Ox-chair) at Form furniture store on 12/15/04 in Oakland, CA. Per Hansen, a visiting professor from Denmark, has done a book on the big Danish designers of the 1950s. PAUL CHINN/The Chronicle MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND S.F. CHRONICLE/NO SALES - MAGS OUT less A chair designed by Hans Wegner in 1961, (AP 46 Ox-chair) at Form furniture store on 12/15/04 in Oakland, CA. Per Hansen, a visiting professor from Denmark, has done a book on the big ... more Just one design, the Chair, created in 1949, assured Danish designer Hans J. Wegner a seat among the greatest designers in the world, but when he died in Copenhagen on Jan. 26 at 92, he also had a place among the most prolific.
He created on average five new chairs for every year he lived. To create the perfect chair was a quest he never lost sight of. "The good chair is a task one is never completely done with," Wegner (pronounced Vay-ner in Danish) has been quoted as saying. It was "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." Born in 1914, Wegner was the son of a cobbler who had the good fortune of growing up in a small town, Tonder, during an age of renewed respect for craft and one that witnessed the birth of Bauhaus-style modernism. He apprenticed as a carpenter until he was 22, before he landed at the School of Arts and Crafts and the Architectural Academy in Copenhagen. He presided over the popularity of midcentury Danish design, which his own round-backed Chair -- dubbed "the world's most beautiful chair" on a 1950 cover of Interiors magazine -- contributed to greatly.
It later appeared as the chair of choice in the 1960 presidential debate -- the first ever to be televised -- between Nixon and Kennedy. Northern California storm causes flooding, with worse to come Swedes scratch heads at Trump's suggestion of major incident Lisa Marie Presley says she's broke after ex asks for money Wegner, modest and pragmatic, revisited the curved round-backed form of that chair again and again. His designs are elegant, wafer thin, with sensual lines in voluptuous teak and simple cane. The forms are sculpted to be viewed in the round -- Wegner firmly believed that each chair should stand alone and should not be viewed as part of a set -- and perfected for comfort. He simplified classical forms as well as those he saw in portraits of Danish merchants seated on Ming chairs from China and adapted them for a variety of uses, thus expanding the scope and range of each new design. His Peacock chair is a modern version of the Windsor chair. Arne Jacobsen and Erik Moeller were Wegner's most influential mentors;
he worked as a furniture designer in their architecture firms until 1943, when he opened his own office. In Denmark, furniture designers were considered architects, said Bay Area architect and developer Rodney Friedman, who was a U.S. Air Force officer from 1957 to 1959 in Germany, where he moonlighted as a dealer of Danish furniture for servicemen. When Friedman visited small furniture factories, such as Johannes Hansen and PP furniture, that produced Wegner's work in Copenhagen, "they would ask me what kind of architect I was. Did I design furniture, lamps or buildings? "It was the beginning of the popularity of Herman Miller and Knoll at places like Frasier's on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley," he said. Servicemen understood the forms and were attracted to the low prices -- a hand-finished dining chair by Wegner cost just $14 -- and they were also encouraged to buy because they could ship their purchases home for free. Such things contributed greatly to Wegner's popularity in the United States, and by the time Nixon and Kennedy were seen on television in Wegner's chairs, many ex-servicemen were sitting on their own versions at home.
They were comfortable enough to keep. They still are, except -- are you sitting down? -- a Chair today is worth nearly $700.Remember that old chestnut: What book, movie, or CD would you take if you were marooned on a desert island? I'd also want a comfortable chair for all that reading, watching, and listening, and I know which one I'd choose. It wouldn't be my Aeron, which is admirable, but really only good for working at a desk, and which, in any case, would look silly on a beach. The Adirondack chair that stands on my terrace is more suited to the outdoors, and I like the broad arms that double as side tables, but it's not really comfortable for long periods of time. What I'd want on the desert island is my rocking chair, which is good for reading and listening (I use it for watching television), and which would also serve for the many idle moments in between. My rocker is not a Colonial antique. It was designed in 1944 by Danish furniture-maker Hans J. Wegner, who died last month at the age of 92.
Wegner was one of a group of Danes responsible for what came to be known as Danish Modern furniture in the 1950s and '60s. Danish Modern was modern in a particular way. Unlike the furniture of the Bauhaus-influenced designers, which tended to look machinelike and favored chrome tubing and leather straps, Danish Modern was invariably wood, and while it was manufactured and often minimalist, it managed to preserve its ties to the ancient craft of furniture-making by incorporating traditional joinery. It was also much more comfortable. This had partly to do with its evolutionary nature—the Danish designers were not out to reinvent the wheel—and partly with basic Scandinavian good sense, which never compromised comfort for the sake of ideology. Wegner, who studied furniture design in Copenhagen, had qualified early in his life as a master carpenter, and he never lost his appreciation for handwork. While still in school, he was hired by architects Arne Jacobsen and Erik Møller to design furniture for a town hall that they were building.
He opened his own design office in 1943. His chairs from this period (my rocker is one) are traditional in conception, but modern in execution. My chair, for example, is solid beech with a seat of traditional woven cord, but its parts are shaped and connected together with a high degree of abstract elegance. The chair's generous proportions allow freedom of movement, which is an important element of seating comfort. Wegner also produced his version of a spindle-back Windsor chair. Later he became more adventurous, experimenting with veneered plywood shells (at about the same time as Charles and Ray Eames did in the United States). Wegner is probably best known for a series of armchairs in which a single curved piece of wood forms the back as well as the arms. Wegner took the general idea from some ancient Chinese chairs, and he produced many variations: frames of solid cherry, mahogany, ash, beech, and oak, and seats of woven cord, cane, and cushioned leather. The so-called Wishbone chair (Wegner did not name his designs; it appears as CH 24 in catalogs) dates from 1950 and is a classic.
Perhaps the simplest of all is PP203, which has unbraced legs that also support the semicircular back and arms. CBS bought 12 of these chairs for use in the famous 1960 televised presidential debate between Kennedy and Nixon. The continued appeal of Wegner's furniture (most of which is still in production) is not hard to explain. It is beautiful, of course, and extremely well-made. While mass-produced, it feels crafted, and the manufacturing process includes both machining and handwork. It won't bankrupt you; although prices have crept up over the years, the roughly $500 price of a Wishbone chair is still reasonable compared to much designer furniture. While many chairs look beautiful, Wegner's chairs must be used to be fully appreciated—both for their comfort, and for the tactile experience of the materials and the carved shapes. As the Danish designer once said: "A chair is only finished when someone sits in it." Correction, Feb. 16, 2007: This piece originally stated that the Nixon-Kennedy debate took place in 1961.