A chair with a useful disappearing act
A comfortable chair is welcome until the room needs to do something else. Rex addresses both moments. Its shaped wooden seat and back offer a generous sitting form; its folding structure lets the chair become a much thinner object when it is put away.
MoMA records Niko Kralj’s REX Lounge Chairs as a 1956 design. The museum’s examples measure nine centimetres deep when folded, a striking indication of the change in form rather than a universal dimension for every Rex.2
Here, the stored shape deserves as much attention as the chair opened for use.
The spaces cut into the wood
The seat and back gain their airy appearance from parallel slots in shaped plywood. MAO, Ljubljana’s Museum of Architecture and Design, explains the perforations as both a visual feature and a way to reduce the amount of material.3
These are useful spaces. They let light pass through what might otherwise read as a broad wooden surface. The eye follows the remaining strips and the curve they share, so the chair can look open while retaining a coherent sitting shape.
Rex Kralj’s current lounge-chair description connects the cut plywood to its curves, low weight and folding behaviour. The material treatment and the overall structure belong to the same design problem.4
An industrial chair from Slovenia
MAO places the broader Rex story in 1952, naming Kralj and Stol Kamnik. Its account describes an early Slovenian experiment in mass-producing an affordable everyday chair through pressed and perforated plywood.1
That earlier family history and the more specific 1956 folding lounge record answer different questions. One introduces the wider project; the other anchors the particular chair examined here.
The industrial context matters because a wooden chair can easily be read as an object shaped entirely by hand. Rex’s curves also belong to a story about repeatable production. The useful form had to make sense for manufacturing as well as for someone sitting down.
Making room without becoming disposable
The current Rex range continues the folding lounge chair in wood finishes including beech and oak. Its maker still presents folding as a central part of the product.4
A chair that folds can be substantial during use and temporary in its claim on the room. Those qualities are often treated as opposites. Rex brings them into one object by giving the opened and closed forms equal attention.
Look again at the slots and the joints. One set of decisions opens the surface to light; another allows the structure to close. Together they explain a chair that can take its place comfortably, then make room for the next thing a household needs to do.