To mark the 100-year anniversary of Danish designer Hans J Wegner's birth, furniture brand PP Møbler has relaunched a collection of his best-known designs and pieces that never made it into production.
"If only you could design just one good chair in your life... But you simply cannot," said Hans J Wegner in 1952, despite having already created what became known simply as "The Chair" in 1949. He continued designing chairs, producing a total of over 500 in his lifetime.
Danish company PP Møbler presented the selection of Wegner's designs in Milan earlier this year.
The PP501 – "The Chair" as it was christened by the American market, or "the round one" as Wegner himself called it – was reissued in a limited edition of just 100 each of the oak and ash versions.
"The Chair" is one of the most well-known pieces of Danish furniture and Wegner's most important work. It triggered the first foreign report on Danish design in the American Interiors Magazine, provided seating for John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in the first televised election debate in 1960, and inspired a generation of designers galvanising the international breakthrough of the Danish Modern movement.
The back is carved out of a five-inch piece of solid wood and it comes with a cane seat.
The Upholstered Peacock Chair is a version of the classic 1947 PP550 Peacock Chair, which has never been put in production before. Wegner repeated the arch of the original version, covering the seat and back with fabric and adding a leather trim on the neck and the armrests.
The wooden parts of the chair are made from oak or walnut and either soap treated, walnut oil treated or lacquered. The upholstery is made from natural materials like flax fibres, cotton, jute straps, palm leaves and horsehair, to ensure the chair will be "worn in rather than worn out with time".
Conceived in 1954, the experimental PP530 Tub Chair was the most advanced shell chair design Wegner ever designed, featuring moulded plywood, upholstery, traditional solid woodwork and a metal adjuster. It was not technically possible to manufacture within his lifetime, but using the latest technology PP Møbler has been able to put it into production to mark what would have been Wegner's 100th birthday.
The PP530 comes with an adjustable back featuring three positions: an upright position for reading, a middle position for normal use and a slightly reclined position for relaxing. It comes in soap treated, oil treated and lacquered oak and ash.
The Hammock Chair and a new version of The Swivel Chair PP502 were also released.
PP Møbler launched the new Wegner collection in the MC Selvini showroom during Milan Design Week. It will be presented again in France for Paris Design Week, from 6 to 13 September 2014 in the Silvera showroom.
An exhibition of Wegner's furniture is currently on display at Copenhagen's design museum. Recently, British fashion designer Paul Smith added his signature stripes to some of Wegner's well-known designs and Carl Hansen & Son has put his CH88 chair into production.