Fashion, Art, Design, Lifestyle

Vesper · 2024-10-30T12:39:08Z

"Mid-century homes are a labour of love" say conservation experts

https://www.dezeen.com/2024/10/23/mid-century-modern-home-preservation-conservation/

The challenges of preserving and upkeeping mid-century modern homes mean many are at risk of demolition, conservation experts tell Dezeen as part of our mid-century modern series.

Open-plan layouts, large windows and aesthetically on-trend fitted furniture are among the attributes found in many mid-century modern houses built from the mid-1940s to the early 1970s that make them sought-after today.

However, experts say that difficulties in maintaining the original building fabric and the challenges of fittings that aren't compatible with modern technology mean mid-century modern homes are especially vulnerable to demolition.

Many mid-century modern homes are at risk of demolition. Above and top: photos of High Sunderland by Dapple Photography courtesy of Loader Monteith

"Mid-century homes are a labour of love," said Liz Waytkus, director of conservation group Docomomo US. "Most people who own them put most of their time into them."

"Mid-century modernism was when we came up with the idea of open concept between the kitchen, the living room and dining room, so they're absolutely what people still want," she told Dezeen.

"Maybe the bathrooms and closets were smaller, but maybe we can learn something about our consumerism and our spending habits."

Mid-century modern houses "underbuilt for the land"

Although many mid-century modern homes have qualities that people today consider desirable, in some cases, they are torn down to make way for larger developments.

A number of notable mid-century modern homes have been razed recently. These include Marcel Breuer's Geller I house in Long Island, demolished to make way for a tennis court, and Craig Ellwood's Zimmerman House in Los Angeles, which was torn down by actor Chris Pratt to build a mansion.

"There are realtors in all 50 US states who specialise in mid-century because there is such a demand," said Waytkus. "It gets trickier when you have a house in a desirable area – the mid-century homes are then considered underbuilt for the land."

Experts say mid-century homes and interiors are desirable today. Photo of Farnsworth House by William Zbaren

Waytkus aims to offer guidance to homeowners navigating the challenges of maintaining mid-century modern homes in the hopes that more of the homes will be well preserved. One of the ways she does this is by connecting them with contractors who have experience working with mid-century materials.

"The earlier examples of modern homes were often made of wood, and wood will last you longer than any of the plastic garbage that you get on the market now," she said. "With a little bit of TLC, that wood could be restored."

"Later, in the 60s and 70s, the materials were more experimental and it takes more time to find the right contractor who understands mid-century homes. Having a knowledgable community is really important to point people in the right direction."

Jon Wright, who is the 20th-century heritage lead at architecture studio Purcell, agreed with Waytkus that mid-century modern interiors are popular are highly sought after today.

"Mid-century modern is really quite desirable now, and it fits very well into modern lifestyles," he said. "The key thing for that is the open-plan nature of it."

"If we were having this conversation 20 years ago, nobody would have been interested in G plan furniture, fitted teak sideboards, open plan living, or anything from the 50s or 60s," he continued.

Lack of mid-century modern conservation reference material

However, he argued that fixtures and fittings from the period are a challenging aspect of home preservation and that there are not enough previous examples for people to reference.

"The fixtures and fittings are not compatible with new technology and new ways of living, particularly in the kitchen," Wright said. "That includes completely new pieces of utility that would not been there before, like dishwashers."

"There's also an issue of knowing how to look after it," he continued. "If one were dealing with the fixtures and fittings of a Victorian or Georgian house, there is a long track record of textbook cases that you could go to – you know what to do because it's been done in another 100 places."

"But there isn't that track record for post-war building conservation. Very often, you're doing things for the first time."

Purcell worked on the conservation of the 1961 Ahm House in Hertfordshire. Photo by James O Davies

Wright emphasised the importance of distinguishing between original features and later alterations when conserving a building.

For mid-century homes, he argues that the most significant features are the building materials, the arrangement of internal spaces and how the project relates to the surrounding landscape.

"Making changes is what conservation is really about – what can I do to this building without messing up what's truly important about it?" he said.

Balance between preservation and future suitability is necessary

UK conservation group Twentieth Century Society director Catherine Croft believes that some alterations are necessary to make mid-century modern homes liveable and long-lasting.

She explained that in some cases, homeowners are told by authorities to preserve impractical home fittings that are sometimes later additions to the house.

"With housing more than anything else, we're sometimes asked to intervene on behalf of owners who feel that they're being given too hard a time by local authority planners and conservation officers – particularly about retention of kitchen fittings that aren't necessarily original," she said.

"It's the sort of cases where we end up saying, maybe back off a little bit. Let's get a balance between preserving the historic fabric and making sure these buildings have a future."

Hassrick House is a mid-century home maintained by Thomas Jefferson University. Photo by Hussain Aljoher

Suzanne Singletary – director of The Center for the Preservation of Modernism and architecture professor at Thomas Jefferson University – hopes to spread awareness of the significant design aspects of mid-century modern homes by using Hassrick House as an example.

Designed by modernist architect Richard Neutra in 1958, the Philadelphia home was sold to Thomas Jefferson University to be used for educational purposes.

Singletary has analysed Hassrick House with her students, documenting how the building's condition declines without proper maintenance.

"The reason why many buildings from this period are being demolished is because it's easier to get rid of it and start all over with newer materials, even though the notion that the greenest building is one already built is true," said Singletary.

"Within the five years since we've purchased Hassrick House, we can see already how quickly the building deteriorates," she continued. "They used novel materials that are often hard to replace and hard to get to a state of equilibrium where they're not decaying any further."

Croft argued that allowing buildings to be listed before they are at risk of being torn down would help protect more mid-century modern houses and would mean they are purchased by people with a desire to maintain them.

"Buildings are only being added to the list if they are threatened with demolition, but it would be infinitely better if a broader upgrading of the listing system was happening on a regular basis," she said.

"It's not really fair that people might buy a property and then subsequently have restrictions placed on it that they weren't anticipating."

There is more of an interest in preserving these types of homes now than ever before, according to experts.

"There's more of an outcry when something from this period is threatened than there ever has been before," added Wright. "That's entirely due to listing and organisations like the 20th Century Society putting their head above the parapet, saying, actually, this stuff is really great."

Vesper · 2024-10-30T12:48:34Z

Eames Shell chair aims to get "the best to the greatest number of people for the least"

https://www.dezeen.com/2024/10/11/eames-fiberglass-chair-mid-century-modern-series/

Continuing our series on mid-century modern design, we spotlight the Eames Shell chair, which features a seat that was moulded to the contours of the human body.

Created by design duo Charles and Ray Eames in the summer of 1949, the Eames chair became hugely influential in a period of mass production across the United States.

Produced by furniture company Herman Miller from 1950, the fibreglass chair presented an innovative furniture typology and has become one of the best-known furniture designs of the twentieth century.

Charles and Ray Eames created the first industrially manufactured plastic chair. Photo courtesy of Vitra

The chair is defined by its organically shaped shell made from glass fibre-reinforced polyester resin, a type of plastic that the couple started working with after it was developed by the US military.

Its seat was moulded to embrace the contours of its user and is raised on a network of steel or wooden legs.

The smooth form of the one-piece seat dips towards the rear, before rising up to form its backrest, which tilts backwards and tapers inwards to cradle the user.

The Shell chair was the latest in a line of chairs designed by Ray and Charles Eames, who met at the Cranbrook Academy of Art before marrying in 1941 and moving to Los Angeles where they established the design studio Eames Office.

The chairs feature shell seats moulded to the contours of a human body. Photo by James Brittain

The duo's first chair was the plywood Lounge Chair Wood, created in 1945, which showcased new ways of working with plywood.

Continuing their material experiments, in 1948, they created the first prototype for the Shell chair, which won second place in the Low-Cost Furniture Design competition organised by the Museum of Modern Art.

Following the win, the designers conducted experiments in search of a cheaper and more practical material for mass-produced furniture, which ultimately led to their use of fibreglass.

"The point was not fiberglass, the point was the 'need,'" Eames Office director Eames Demetrios told Dezeen.

"It was a belief that if you could harness the cost – for example: no upholstery cost –, comfort and elegance efficiencies of making the seat and back one, you would fulfill a need people may not have even realized they had."

The fibreglass armchair curves upwards at its sides to form an armrest. Photo courtesy of Vitra

Integral to the success of the Eames Shell chairs was their ability to be mass-produced, which reflects the duo's goal of "getting the most of the best to the greatest number of people for the least", as Charles Eames said in a LIFE magazine interview in 1950.

A number of variations of the original Eames chairs, which become known as the Plastic Group, enhanced their adaptability and multifunctional qualities and have contributed to their endured success.

Among the first iterations to be launched was the Shell armchair. Also made from moulded fibreglass, the Shell armchair features an ergonomic seat that curves upwards at its sides to form an armrest.

The designers also created a side chair for the collection, which became the first mass-produced plastic chair in the history of furniture.

The chairs were later available in a range of different colours. Photo courtesy of Herman Miller Archives

The original fibreglass seats were designed to be combined with a variety of bases – including a four-legged base made from steel and a rocker – to enable various seating positions.

"The role of the designer is that of a very good, thoughtful host anticipating the needs of his guests," Charles Eames said.

The rocker was used to create the Rocking Armchair Rod (RAR), developed in 1950, which features a swaying seat sat on a network of steel rods connected to birch rockers.

The Rocking Armchair was developed in 1950. Photo courtesy of Vitra

The colour range of the Shell chairs was also expanded from the original three colours of elephant-grey, greige and parchment to up to 30 colours.

Due to its environmental impact, the use of fibreglass for the shell chairs was discontinued first by Herman Miller in 1989 and later by Vitra, which is the partner to the Eames Office for Europe and the Middle East, in 1993.

Both companies began to instead use polypropylene as an alternative for their production.

A Herman Miller x Hay collaboration aims to create "designs for a new generation". Photo courtesy of Herman Miller

Working through the 1950s and 60s, the Eameses moved into other furniture typologies. Among these is the Model 671 ottoman chair, made from rosewood plywood, aluminium and leather upholstery in 1956, which has become another classic.

Their design expertise later expanded to architecture, with the creation of the two-storey Case Study House #8, known as Eames House, which became one of the most influential mid-century modern houses.

Since the passing of Charles in 1978 and Ray in 1988, the shell chairs remain in production through a collaboration between the Eames Office and its product partners Herman Miller and Vitra.

Continued demand and popularity of the Eames chairs have led to their evolution over the years.

"It lasts today, because the Eameses focussed on the need, not a pre-selected solution," Demetrios concluded. "This allowed them and now us at the Eames Office today to thoughtfully improve the chair with more eco-friendly plastics."

"And even now, we have made the chair with post-consumer recycled plastic. All the same chair that they envisioned decades ago."

In January of this year, Vitra launched the Eames Plastic Chair RE range, which sees a shift to recycled plastic for the manufacturing of the chairs' shells.

The chair also lives on in collaborations, such as the recent Herman Miller x Hay range. This encompasses eight Eames chairs that were reimagined by Danish design brand Hay to create "Eames designs for a new generation".

The photography is courtesy of Eames Office unless otherwise stated.

Vesper · 2024-10-30T12:55:29Z

Charlotte Perriand's Bibliothèques countered the "quite elitist" furniture she created for Le Corbusier

https://www.dezeen.com/2024/10/21/charlotte-perriands-bibliotheques-tunisie-mexique/

The latest story in our mid-century modern series explores how designer Charlotte Perriand stepped out of the shadow of her mentor Le Corbusier in the 1950s and created a pioneering modular storage system.

Originally developed on a small budget for even smaller rooms in two new student halls at the Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris, the storage system featured a flat-pack wooden frame with modular compartments made of folded aluminium.

The standardised, industrially produced metal components could be lacquered in different colours and assembled in different configurations, creating storage with unprecedented adaptability.

At Steph Simon Gallery in Paris, where the public could purchase the bookcases or Bibliothèques from 1956, Perriand even sold these compartments individually, alongside other modular "hardware" like shelves, trays and sliding panels.

The designer briefly lived in Japan. Photo Jacques Martin/AChP courtesy of Scheidegger & Spiess

These could be used to customise the shelving system – and other furniture like desks and wardrobes – to the needs of the owner.

"Although revolutionary, this concept of kit furniture adaptable by the customer did not achieve the expected success," explained the catalogue of a 2005 exhibition on the designer's work at the Centre Pompidou.

"Undoubtedly too far ahead of her time, Charlotte Perriand did not realize that the public was not yet ready for so much freedom."

It wasn't until the 1990s, when they started showing up on auction blocks in Paris and New York, that the Bibliothèques would become a "cult piece of design furniture", according to Jacques Barsac, who oversees the Archives Charlotte Perriand alongside the designer's daughter.

Today, the original shelving units sell for upwards of €100,000 at auction houses like Christie's and Sotheby's, with some fetching over €500,000.

But when Perriand originally created the shelving in 1952 for the new Jean Sebag-designed Maison de la Tunisie student halls in Paris, the budget covering all the furniture for the rooms including a bed, desk, chair and wardrobe was a mere 150,000 francs.

Perriand adapted the idea for the Maison du Mexique. Image courtesy of Phillips

Crucial to the relative affordability of her storage units were their prefabricated aluminium modules, mass-produced in the metal workshop of architect Jean Prouvé in Nancy.

These metal compartments weren't just decorative but actually supported the shelves and braced the whole furniture piece, reducing the need for more expensive, hand-crafted wooden components.

The Bibliothèques were a marked departure from the tubular steel seating Perriand had created for architect Le Corbusier's studio in the 1920s. These include the iconic 4 chaise longue, previously known as the LC4 Chaise Longue, which proved too expensive to produce in large numbers.

"It was quite elitist because only a very small volume of pieces could be made," said Dominic Lutyens, author of Design Monograph: Perriand. "They were very expensive and so had a very limited audience."

"But there was a point at which Perriand felt that design should be a lot more democratic," he told Dezeen. "And one way in which that could happen for her was through the use of prefabrication."

Fondation Louis Vuitton recreated a Maison de la Tunisie bedroom. Photo by Marc Domage courtesy of the Fondation Louis Vuitton

In light of the post-war housing crisis, space-saving shelving became a primary concern for many mid-century designers. And Perriand was among the most prolific, leading French newspaper Le Monde to dub her the "high priestess of storage".

"Storage is a priority," Perriand said at the time. "It must be resolutely industrialised."

Perriand designed her Bibliothèques to make the most of the compact bedrooms in the Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris student halls, measuring only 15 square metres.

"She enumerated what was necessary for a student’s daily life: shoes, clothing, bed covers, files, books, et cetera, whose dimensions she took down so as to be as exact as possible in the storage volumes," Barsac wrote in Charlotte Perriand: Complete Works.

Like many of her pieces, the Bibliothèque Maison de la Tunisie was designed to fulfil multiple functions at the same time, with one of its shelves extending to form a bench seat.

Similarly, the adapted storage unit that Perriand created for Jorge Medellin's Maison du Mexique, which followed a few months later, functioned as a freestanding partition between the bedroom and bathroom.

Accessible from both directions, it provided storage for toiletries on one side and books on the other, either proudly displayed or hidden away behind sliding doors.

"She really pioneered open-plan spaces," Lutyens said. "One of Perriand's room sets for fairs in the 1920s used storage cabinets as room dividers so conceptually, she was quite ahead of her time in this respect."

Perriand created many variations of the Nuage bookcase including one with a built-in radio and bar. Courtesy of AChP via Scheidegger & Spiess

The individual components for the shelving were flat-packed and ultimately assembled on-site by cabinetmaker Jean Chetaillecuts, who also created their wooden structure.

Perriand went on to create myriad variations of the design under the title Nuage, meaning cloud in French, produced and sold by Galerie Steph Simon until 1970.

The name is a nod to the original inspiration behind the design, which she found in the Sukiya-style cabinets of Kyoto's 17th-century imperial villas.

"I noticed some shelves arranged on the walls in the form of a cloud," said the designer, who went to Tokyo in 1940 as war was breaking out in Europe to consult on a Ministry for Commerce programme focused on modernising Japanese crafts for export.

"This is where my cloud-shaped bookshelves came from with aluminium connecting elements, a free form that gives rhythm to space and enhances the objects it supports," she wrote in her autobiography. "Starting from these elements, I could freely create entire walls or reduced combinations, or even furniture."

The Nuage bookcase was originally sold by Galerie Steph Simon. Photo by Marie Clérin via Galerie Downtown-François Laffanour and Scheidegger & Spiess

Like so many works by women in the European modern movement – including Perriand's designs for Le Corbusier – her family says Nuage was later falsely credited in part to Jean Prouvé and was embroiled in a lengthy legal dispute before being reissued by Italian furniture brand Cassina in 2012.

"Charlotte gave her whole life for her copyright to be recognized," her daughter Pernette Perriand told Domus at the time of the launch.

"The money from the Cassina reissues allowed Charlotte to live and write books, to organize exhibits and keep the memory of her work alive, maintaining the archives."

Today, Perriand is considered one of the most influential designers of the 20th century, with several high-profile exhibitions at London's Design Museum and the Fondation Louis Vuitton reappraising her work in recent years.

The show in Paris featured a full-scale recreation of a Maison de la Tunisie bedroom and marked the first time the whole Frank Gehry-designed gallery was given over to the work of a single artist.

Unless otherwise stated, all imagery is from volumes two and three of Charlotte Perriand: Complete Works by Jacques Barsac, courtesy of Scheidegger & Spiess.

Vesper · 2024-10-30T14:23:26Z

Mid-century designers and engineers "envisioned the future" at GM's Tech Center

https://www.dezeen.com/2024/10/30/gms-tech-center-mid-century-saarinen/

The Warren Technical Center in Michigan, the first solo project by Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen, showcased the unity of mid-century architecture, design and engineering in the United States.

Completed in 1956 in a small town outside of Detroit, the headquarters comprises a number of administrative, testing and design facilities for General Motors (GM).

Driven by GM head of design Harley Earl, the campus was meant to create an environment for innovation, with every aspect reflecting the company's high standard of design.

The Warren Technical Center is a hub for General Motor's research divisions

"[Earl] created the first automotive design department that would be able to apply aesthetic considerations to a mass-produced, industrial product," GM curator and archivist Natalie Morath told Dezeen.

"This approach to design consideration continued with the Tech Center project and the architecture that would support the organization, from the large scale of the entire campus, down to the smallest detail – like the chairs that designers sat in – and was very much a shared priority of Eero Saarinen," she added.

The centre was built in the context of the post-war economic boom in the country, which coincided with many European architects and mass-produced consumer items exploding in popularity.

Eero Saarinen created a masterplan for the campus in the 1950s

Many of the more than 30 buildings designed by Saarinen were rendered in the International Style, with some aesthetic flourishes such as the silver-coloured Design Dome and Auditorium.

Saarinen was tasked by Earl to design the campus to reflect the future-looking ethos of the company at the time and to facilitate the industrial design and engineering taking place there.

The Design Center and other administrative buildings were built in the International Style

"The campus needed to immediately communicate to visitors the significance of GM as an American company, and it needed to reinforce its vital role in the future," said Morath.

"As incredibly practical as it may be, the campus also must function as a bit of a dream world, where designers and engineers are inspired to envision the future."

Many mid-century furniture designers created pieces for the headquarters

The buildings themselves feature clean lines and industrial detailing on the outside, with colourful spaces and a mix of natural and industrial materials spread throughout the interiors.

Many have sculptural staircases at the centre that highlight the openness of the space.

Saarinen and Earl also collaborated with some of the leading names in mid-century furniture design at the time, such as the Eamses, Harry Bertoia, and Florence Knoll, modulating their popular designs to fit the needs of the campus.

Earl commissioned Danish designer Finn Juhl to design a chair for his personal office.

According to Morath, the campus functions more like a small town than a traditional business centre, with roads and other facilities for the staff.

Saarinen worked with American landscape architect Thomas Dolliver Church to carry out the vision, including plantings as well as reflecting pools.

"It was the type of project where one architect was providing a vision for a really large space, a holistic vision, where all the buildings and all the landscaping – everything would work together," said Morath.

It was a demonstration of mid-century design on a large scale

The scheme included the integration of large-scale works of art, such as a water fountain by American sculptor Alexander Calder, which was recently restored in line with efforts to revamp the historical aspects of the campus alongside new builds.

This integration of functional and artistic elements in aspects of the campus can also be seen in the futuristic, aluminium-clad water tower on the site.

Today, Saarinen's structures are a reminder of the mid-century roots of the campus

The Tech Center was where many of the concept cars and experimentations in post-war automobile technology were designed for GM.

During this time, the design team at GM developed the first three futuristic Firebird concept cars, and the building was often used as a prop to underline GM's focus on modern design.

"Photoshoots were staged on campus, using the Eero Saarinen-designed buildings as backdrops, further driving home the message that the architecture of the campus was as future-oriented as the concept vehicles," said Morath.

Since its construction, the campus has also undergone significant expansions, which, according to Morath, was part of the original brief.

GM still references the mid-century architecture in its new buildings

"Eero Saarinen's original design was a highly functional and highly specialized industrial campus that was intended to meet GM's needs at the time, and accommodate its needs in the future, whatever those might be," she said.

The campus showcased what it meant for mid-century design concepts, such as organic shapes and flexible design, to be applied at a massive scale.

It also incorporated the Bauhaus principles from earlier in the century, combining a future-looking vision with creating human-oriented spaces for work.

"The campus needed to be large, enclosed and private to protect GM's confidential product development activities, and it needed to inspire its residents to focus on innovating for the future," said Morath.

Saarinen would go on to design a number of other iconic structures in the United States that took on the industrial materials of the age.

Many of the mid-century interiors still look very much like they did more than 60 years ago

The Warren Technical Center has since become an icon in the context of American mid-century architecture and design, integrating as it did Saarinen and Earl's grand visions for an integrated industrial facility.

It has expanded over the years to accommodate the growing facilities, and Morath said that the new buildings are always designed with deference to the original scheme.

In 2014, it was designated as a National Historic Landmark in the United States.

The photography is courtesy of General Motors.

Vesper · 2024-10-30T14:30:24Z

Arne Jacobsen "dared to work with modern materials" for Egg chair

https://www.dezeen.com/2024/10/18/arne-jacobsen-egg-chair-fritz-hansen-mid-century-modern/

Continuing our mid-century modernism series, we take a look at the iconic Egg chair, which was designed by Danish architect Arne Jacobsen in 1958 for the former SAS Royal Hotel in Copenhagen.

Characterised by an oval, upholstered main body supported by a steel insert and a four-pronged aluminium tilt and swivel base, the Egg has been manufactured by Danish furniture brand Fritz Hansen since its inception.

Jacobsen first sculpted the Egg out of hard polyurethane foam instead of shaping it around a traditional wooden or steel frame – an unconventional furniture manufacturing process for its time, positioning the chair as a historic achievement. It was subsequently upholstered in textile and leather variants.

Arne Jacobsen designed the Egg chair in 1958. Top and above: photos courtesy of Fritz Hansen

Jacobsen was the first designer to realise its full potential, according to Arne Jacobsen Design I/S – an organisation founded to preserve the architect's legacy – with Fritz Hansen securing the rights for the foam-based method in the mid-1950s.

The distinctively cocooning chair is considered one of the defining product designs by Jacobsen, who practised as an architect and designer until he died in 1971.

The architect conceived the original Egg in his garage, experimenting with wire, plaster and clay to devise the chair's recognisable scooped shape. It is often said that Jacobsen's inspiration was the 1948 Womb chair, designed by his contemporary, architect Eero Saarinen.

It was created for Copenhagen's former SAS Royal Hotel. Photo courtesy of Fritz Hansen

Christian Andresen, design director at Fritz Hansen, reflected on the significance of the Egg, which highlights a post-war trend in the international design scene when European and American architects began to favour organic shapes crafted from novel materials.

"Jacobsen dared to work with modern materials and was curious about technology and industrial manufacturing, unlike some of his peers who were still focussed on the traditional way of making furniture," he told Dezeen.

"A key characteristic of Jacobsen was his ability to convert his artistic belief in furniture into all of his designs," added the design director.

Jacobsen designed every component of the hotel. Photo courtesy of Radisson Collection Royal Hotel

Born in Copenhagen in 1902, Jacobsen is remembered as a pioneer of Danish modernism, with a particular focus on projects that combined his architecture and design.

Among these is Copenhagen's SAS Royal Hotel – today, the recently listed Radisson Royal Collection Hotel – constructed as a hotel-cum-airport terminal for Scandinavian Airlines in 1960. Jacobsen meticulously designed every component of the building, from its rectilinear aluminium and glass facade to the restaurant's stainless steel cutlery and porcelain blue ashtrays.

One of these designs was the Egg, first created for the hotel lobby in 1958 alongside its sister chair the Swan. The generous curves of the furniture were designed in direct contrast to the hotel's strict geometric architecture.

The Egg is known for its enveloping body. Photo courtesy of Radisson Collection Royal Hotel

"Jacobsen had a clear and uncompromising style when designing architecture and a very emotional and organic approach to interiors and the furniture in his projects," considered Andresen. "This was probably uncommon in the 1940s and 50s, making him unique."

"The Egg created an intimate, almost enclosed space, while simultaneously allowing its occupants to swivel around and follow the buzz of the hotel reception," he added.

"Jacobsen often put two to three chairs in a circle to create a bouquet of chairs in an often rigid and structured space, creating an oasis in the room."

It has been made of foam since its inception. Photo courtesy of Fritz Hansen

Dominic Bradbury, author of the 2022 book Mid-Century Modern Furniture, agrees. "The Egg famously provides an enveloping and secure space within a space," he wrote.

In 1958, both the Egg and the Swan were met with positive reviews, highlighting the instant popularity of Jacobsen's modern design approach.

"There was a major do at Fritz Hansen's furniture factory yesterday – almost like a catwalk show with spotlights, flash photography and VIP guests," reported Danish newspaper Politiken shortly after the furniture launched.

The hotel's room 606 has been preserved with its original interiors. Photo courtesy of Radisson Collection Royal Hotel

While the interior of the Radisson Royal Collection Hotel was redesigned, a singular room – number 606 – has been preserved with its original interiors, showcasing the Egg as Jacobsen first intended.

Since its creation, the Egg has remained a design classic, not only in luxury environments. The chair's more unusual settings have ranged from the diary room of the first UK series of reality TV show Big Brother in 2000 to European branches of fast food chain McDonald's.

Despite its consistent appearance, the Egg's manufacturing process has undergone four main changes over the years, and "loads of small constructive updates", said Andresen.

"We are constantly looking for new ways of fine-tuning," he explained.

In the 1960s, Fritz Hansen switched from hard to moulded foam and reinforced the chair with fibreglass. However, fibreglass was phased out in the 1980s, when Fritz Hansen switched to a different type of foam, according to the design director.

"Fibreglass is not very sustainable because it creates a composite construction that cannot be recycled," considered Andresen. "Today, we manufacture the chair in a unique construction of moulded hard and soft foam surrounding the steel inner structure."

The Egg has "an iconic sculptural shape". Photo courtesy of Fritz Hansen

"This ensures a very high level of durability and firm stability. The chair also now has no glue or composites, enabling disassembly and recycling," he added.

Despite these shifts in manufacturing, the Egg has retained its foam body, steel insert and upholstery since 1958.

"We still sew the textile and leather variants by hand so the final finishing has not changed since the beginning," added Andresen. "This also means that the chair can be reupholstered if the surface gets damaged or worn out."

"The Egg chair was, and still is, an iconic sculptural shape and a unique design," concluded the design director. "I think the organic, simple and elegant shape is like a sculpture in a room. It can stand by itself and create a space around it, appearing beautiful from all sides."

The photography is courtesy of Fritz Hansen unless stated otherwise.

Vesper · 2024-10-30T15:01:08Z

THE MENSWEAR COLLAB

Sunspel X Nigel Cabourn

Sunspel has teamed up with renowned British designer Nigel Cabourn for a second time. The collection is inspired by brands’ rich archives and consists of a range of pieces in heritage fabrics. Ventile, a waterproof fabric invented in the 1930s, is used for the mesh-lined jacket which reimagines a 1981 army sports jacket from Cabourn’s archive. There’s a Balmacaan wool-cashmere coat crafted from British-woven wool, plus a wide-neck jumper made from soft merino wool. The capsule is completed by a long-sleeve striped roll-neck and t-shirt, with everything made in Sunspel’s Long Eaton factory.

Visit Sunspel.com