Designs

Documented furniture designs

Individual designs and coherent families examined through reliable records.

A frontal view of a dark plywood Ant Chair with a pinched waist and three slender steel legs against a plain wall.

Design story

Ant Chair: the chair that cleared the floor

See how Arne Jacobsen's 1952 Ant Chair turned a canteen brief, one double-curved plywood shell and three legs into an economy of space and material.

Hands weave paper cord onto an incomplete pale-wood Y-back chair beside curved rails and joint samples.

Design story

CH24 Wishbone Chair: how the design is put together

Read the CH24 Wishbone Chair through its dates, curved frame, Y-shaped support, joinery and paper-cord seat—then separate model history from vintage-object evidence.

A frontal view of a Chieftain Chair with a broad orange leather back and seat suspended inside a dark timber frame in a later exhibition setting.

Design story

Chieftain Chair: a chair too large to ignore

Read Finn Juhl's 1949 Chieftain Chair through its commanding scale, exposed timber frame, suspended leather forms, Guild debut and complicated name.

A frontal view of a black leather Egg Chair whose high curving wings narrow to a central stem and aluminium star base.

Design story

Egg Chair: a private room in a public lobby

See how Arne Jacobsen's 1958 Egg Chair used a padded moulded shell to create privacy, focus and small social enclaves inside the SAS Royal Hotel lobby.

A Faaborg Chair centred in a red museum passage, with a dark timber frame, open cane back and slender tapering legs.

Design story

Faaborg Chair: the furniture that knew when to disappear

See how Kaare Klint's 1914 Faaborg Chair used mobility, open cane work and visual restraint to help museum visitors look at art rather than at the chair.

Three-quarter view of a pale timber Safari Chair with separate canvas seat and back, curved leather arm straps and exposed round-ended joints.

Design story

Safari Chair: a finished chair that expects to come apart

See how Kaare Klint's 1933 KK47000 Safari Chair turns knock-down joints, canvas and leather straps into a complete chair—and how to separate its design, maker and vintage-object histories.

An opened three-legged wooden Valet Chair with a hanger-shaped back, raised hinged seat, trouser rail and shallow storage compartment in view.

Design story

Valet Chair: a place for everything you take off

See how Hans J. Wegner’s 1953 Valet Chair turns a hanger, trouser support, seat and pocket-sized compartment into one remarkably composed object.