Arne Jacobsen began his collaboration with Fritz Hansens Eft. Over the years, he designed a series of chairs and armchairs, which often have been considered milestones on the developmental path of contemporary furniture art. In 1952, Arne Jacobsen developed a chair that made him famous: the Chair "Myren" (Ant). This was only made of two parts, a seat and legs, and was one of the first truly industry-standard chairs. The minimised material usage and simple construction were the reasons why the chair was extremely economically constructed — and yet so avant-garde that the manufacturer Fritz Hansen initially didn’t think it would ever be suitable for mass production. Since then, more than five million of these chairs have been sold. The successor to the originally three-legged Ant emerged in 1955 with the Series 7 chair, whose name comes from the model number 3107. It was made from a piece of plywood, but with four legs and wider waist. Today, the 3107 chair still adorns seminar rooms, canteens and cafés all over the world.
Fritz Hansen marketed different re-editions on the 60th anniversary of the Series 7 Chair: chairs in soft pink with gold-plated legs, in dark blue with powder coated legs and a monochromatic collection. Further milestones in the history of design were the Egg Chair, the Drop Chair and the Swan. They are part of Arne Jacobsen's largest project at the end of the 50s: fully equipping the Royal Hotel in the heart of Copenhagen. Would you like to buy an Arne Jacobsen replica chair online? We deliver the Egg chair, the 3107 chair, the Drop series or other objects from the Fritz Hansen series straight to your home.Seated at the center of a new design-related copyright conversation, a series of Eiffel chairs sold by discount superstore Aldi has designers arguing on both sides. The chairs in question look significantly like the DSW Eames Plastic Chair (designed by Charles and Ray Eames in 1950), currently made by copyright holders Vitra in Switzerland. Critics point out that Aldi has been caught doing this before, selling things like Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona Chair on countries where it can avoid copyright entanglements, either because the copyrights have expired or replicas are permitted by law.
Defenders of the discount retailer argue that the entire point of these plastic chairs was to create something cheap, comfortable and easy to mass produce. In other words: the fact that replicas sell for 40 GBP and licensed remakes sell for ten times that goes against the intent of the designers. Either way, Aldi seems to way to stay out of the fray, perhaps planning to hide behind slight design differences when it comes to the structure, materials and details of the seats. In some places, like the United Kingdom, changes to laws have been proposed or are in the works, which may provide additional protections for rights holders now and into the future. There is a larger question at work here though too: how close do designs have to be for them to risk creating intellectual property controversies? There are, after all, only so many ways to plan, design and construct a chair for a human occupant. These days, so many 3D models of seats have been uploaded to programs like SketchUp and it is easier than ever to simply cut, paste and print a copy of one’s own on a 3D printer.
In observance of the 60th anniversary of the Series 7 chair, furniture manufacturer Fritz Hansen enlisted seven architects to re-envision the classic Arne Jacobsen design. Explaining the impetus behind the program, Jacob Holm, CEO of Fritz Hansen, said, “If we fall asleep on top of our heritage, design becomes museum items. And if that happens, it (design) no longer adds new value to the present time.” The participating firms—BIG, Snøhetta, Zaha Hadid, Jean Nouvel, Neri & Hu, Jun Igarashi, and Carlos Ott in association with Carlos Ponce de Léon—certainly created some eye-opening interpretations of the chair. The architects’ comments on their designs reveal their inspirations and intentions. “The inspiration for the design is the materiality of the chair, the essence of the layered veneer and the functionality of the stacking. The final result is a subtle repetition of the iconic form language.” Neri & Hu Design & Research Office “The idea of a replica, a re-edition, hinges on the duality between the original and the re-design.
Our take on this project is to embrace this exact idea of duality and create an actual ‘double’. The doubling of two original seats facing each other becomes the new version: The singular chair multiplied as the individual becomes a community. Reminding us that we are never alone, but always together.” “Our chair is an example of Jean Nouvel’s design signatures: contrasting colors and juxtapositions. Black and white mark each chair—although they still play together in a feminine and masculine flow. Creating a reinforcement of the curves of the front and of the back of the shell.” “The provision for this chair was to create a harmonic transition from the existing shell and how it can effortlessly touch down on the ground. This special edition formalizes the Series 7 chair as a dynamic and seamless expression of structure and support. Formed from two continuous steel rods, the sculptural base sweeps down to the ground and reaches up to embrace the undulating shape of the iconic plywood seat.”
“When buildings collapse during earthquakes, the building materials are wasted. Our idea is to collect the waste wood, introduce a color and process it into boards that can be used for furniture.” Carlos Ott Architects in association with Carlos Ponce de Léon Architects “The chairs have been intervened the same way a vertical garden grows organically up a wall. The upholstery climbs and settles peacefully on the shell of the chair. The curved lines which compose the foundation of the different areas in the garden are mimicked and adapted to the anatomy of the chair”.When opposites meets, they conjure an interesting dialogue. When nature meets the cultivated, when humans interact with architecture, when soft and hard co-exist—interesting things happen. “Maybe the Series 7 chair with its metal legs and wooden seat acknowledges this juxtaposition. We wanted to explore the soft side of the chair. “The wood is a representation of softness in contrast to metal.