ID History caps on: Is that the work of the Eameses? Arne Jacobsen? Eero Saarinen?
Nope, these chairs are all by modern-day designer Thomas Pedersen, whose quest to create comfortable, multi-positional seating has led him towards the flowing lines favored by the aforementioned giants. Yet Denmark-based Pedersen still manages to inject original flair while channeling mid-century modern.
That's been his quest since 2002, when Pedersen was a senior at the Aarhus School of Architecture. For his final project he came up with the StingRay chair. "I wanted to make a swivel chair with lots of different sitting positions," he writes. "The stingray-like shape came into being as a result of the functionality." Pedersen crafted it out of fiberglass in the school's parking lot (they lacked facilities/shop space for working with fiberglass) and eventually went with a rocking base.
In the years since, the StingRay has gone into production, won a Red Dot Design Award and Pedersen has set up his own firm in Denmark called Spark.
His follow-up Concord chair is a more sober version of the StingRay, done up in leather or fabric. It was reportedly inspired by the supersonic passenger jet of the same name. It's also a bit more mechanically sophisticated than the StingRay, as it both swivels and tilts.
Last year saw the release of his Kokon chair, which has the swivel/tilt functionality of the Concord while providing a more cocooning form factor.
This year he added a club version of the Kokon. Despite the fact that it's 2014, this wouldn't look out of place in Roger Sterling's office.
Also this year, Pedersen's stacking Deli chair won a Red Dot Design Award in the "Best of the Best" category. The unusual design features a plastic wraparound form factor with an offset upholstered portion, creeping upwards from the seat to provide lumbar support.
The underlying concept on which the idea is based is that the upholstered section—the integrated seat and lumbar cushion—provides good support when the user is sitting at a table, leaning forward to eat or work. The plastic seat shell, which holds the upholstered section in an organic embrace, supports the back and offers somewhere for users to rest their arms for a more relaxed sitting posture.
The organic form of the human body is an important source of inspiration for many of my furniture designs, and Deli is no exception.
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