The Jacobsen Egg Chair, The Icon of the Mid-Century Modern design
Written by Mark Jennings Tuesday, 17 May 2011 07:36
The Arne Jacobsen's egg chair, so-named because of its resemblance to a smoothly broken eggshell, is the modified, mid-century modern version of the Georgian wing armchair that offers a variety of seating positions and a protective cocoon to anyone who sits in it.
Along with the same designer's Swan Chair, the Egg was originally designed for the SAS Royal Hotel in Copenhagen. It was intended to be used in the guest rooms and in the lobby where chairs were clustered to help provide a more intimate and relaxing atmosphere with its orcanic -and tipically mid-century- forms.
It is not often recognized that in this work Jacobsen owed an enormous debt to the Norwegian designer Henry Klein. Klein was a pioneer in the development of furniture made from shaped plastic shells and held key patent rights for the moulding process he had developed and that was used under license by Jacobsen's manufacturer Fritz Hansen.
In addition, Klein designed the chair Model 1007 in 1956 that had too many similarities with the future Egg chair to imagine that Jacobsen was not aware of it. However -in the designing process of the Egg chair- Jacobsen made a full use of the moulding process potentials achieving a much higher quality level for his product.
But what is most impressive about Jacobsen's work is his clever fusion of several functionally distinct components of the Egg Chair -notably the seat, the back and the armrest- into a clearly unified aesthetic whole, covered in either leather or fabric.The labour intensive and skilled hand-tailoring that is required to fix the covering to the frame means that only six or seven chairs were produced per week, even today.
The Egg chair become immediately an icon. Perhaps because it was designed for the first design Hotel in the world or because it was in Copenhagen, the Egg chair -after more than fifty years- still has a futuristic allure and a contemporary look.
About the Author:
During the Mid-Century modern era designers like Arne Jacobsen, Charles Eames and Finn Juhl, created most of the design icons of the twentieth century. If you want to discover everything about this amazingly creative age of design, check Mid Century Home now!