tubular steel, canvas
All of Prouvé’s furniture has a unique style and undeniably bears the signature of the engineer. “For me pieces of furniture are comparable to a machine frame which is exposed to much wear and tear, and this has prompted me to design furniture with the same care, according to the same laws of statics and even using the same materials,”1 he explained. Prouvé’s folding chair was created at about the same time as another design with an almost identical shape. Here, the seat and back create one rigid unit which can be slightly inclined backward around an axis at the upper end of the legs. The model shown here by contrast, which looks like emergency, theater or airplane seating, is an unusual version of a stackable chair. While the folded chair fits exactly into the rectangular frame of the back, the placement of the front feet, which face inward, allows an endless row of the chairs to be positioned snugly one after the other. The chair is both light and stable due to the frame of hollow steel tubes and tautly stretched canvas; moreover, it requires only a minimum of material. Although it looks as if it would tip over backward if weight were exerted against the back, the angle of the rear legs is large enough to guarantee a solid standing position. MSC
[1]Jean Prouvé, quoted in Benedikt Huber, ed., Jean Prouvé - Architektur aus der Fabrik (Zurich: Artemis, 1971), 142.