Know Your Chairs: The Womb Chair

For this installation of Know Your Chairs, let's look at another classic of Mid-Century Modern design: the Womb Chair. Created in 1946 by Finnish-American designer and architect Eero Saarinen (previously here), around the same time he was working on designs for the gateway Arch in St. Louis, he was approached by Florence Knoll who challenged him to make a new kind of chair: "I told Eero I was sick and tired of the one-dimensional lounge chair...long and narrow...I want a chair I can sit in sideways or any other way I want to sit in it...a chair that was like a basket of pillows...something I could really curl up in."

Saarinen set about reinventing the concept of a chair so that it was not comfortable from all the cushioning or padding, but from the actual shape of the chair itself. Wrapping foam around a fiberglass shell and setting it all on a set of splayed steel legs, the organic, welcoming Womb Chair was born. Speaking to the chair's name, Saarinen said, "It was designed on the theory that a great number of people have never really felt comfortable and secure since they left the womb. The chair is an attempt to rectify this maladjustment in our civilization. There seemed to be a need for a large and really comfortable chair to take the place of the old overstuffed chair. Today, more than ever before, we need to relax."

This classic of modernist design is still available from the original manufacturer and license holder, Knoll.

Happy designing!

Dead Flat by Farrow & Ball

Launched just a few weeks ago, British paint manufacturer Farrow & Ball's new Dead Flat formula is quite striking. A paint with an ultra-matte finish, it boasts only a 2% sheen. This allows the eye to perceive the depth and richness of Farrow & Ball's unique pigments. But what's so new about that you might ask? Haven't F&B always made deep, unusual hues? Well yes, but they have formulated Dead Flat to be--are you sitting down?--completely washable and wipeable, behaving much like a high sheen paint! Truly remarkable.

Happy designing!