Vitra Organic Chair Fabric

Vitra Organic Chair - winner of the competition

The Organic Chair takes its name from the competition "Organic Design in Home Furnishings", which was won by the designers Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen in 1940. The competition entry was a comfortable reading chair for the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York with a body-contoured seat shell. The aim of the competition was to create new furniture, textiles and lamps with harmonious individual parts in relation to the whole for the design of modern life. The winning designs were to be produced after the exhibition opening. The design was far ahead of its time, the armchair could only be produced by hand. In 1940 the chair was just an idea that only later shaped design history. The technical prerequisites for series production were lacking. It was only from 1950 onwards that technology was able to produce seat shells in large quantities. Today the Organic Chair is joined by the Organic Highback armchair with a high backrest and wider and longer armrests and the Organic Conference for use at the dining table or conference table.

Hidden Champion - the Organic Chair

The Organic Chair could only go into production for the first time in 2004, after 64 years. Of the winning designs, only a few originals remain, one of which is in the collection of the Vitra Design Museum. Also because of its significance for design history, the manufacturer Vitra decided to develop the chairs to series production readiness together with the descendants Eames and Saarinen, adapt them to the needs of today's users and produce three of six chair variants. The legs of the chairs are made of black ash or natural oak, the wood comes from Western Europe or Poland. The upholstery is available in numerous fashionable or classic colors and materials, with the right variant for every taste.

The designers

Charles Eames (1907-1978) studied architecture until his design studies in 1938, which was supported by a scholarship from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan by its then director Eliel Saarinen. Soon thereafter, Eames was promoted from talented student to lecturer and in 1940 was appointed head of industrial design at Cranbrook Academy. The son of the Academy's director, Eero Saarinen (1910-1961) studied sculpture in Paris and architecture in the USA. He met Charles Eames while teaching at the Cranbrook Academy. Through joint experiments with deformations of laminated wood and plastic, new types of furniture were developed. On the basis of these experiments, design icons were created in which Charles' later wife Ray (1912-1988) also participated, such as the famous Plastic Armchair. The name Eames stands like no other for the design of the Mid-Century Modern. Many of the products of Charles & Ray Eames can be found in the pro office store. Eero Saarinen became known, among other things, through the Tulip Chair for the Hans Knoll company, but later decided to pursue a successful career as an architect.