Office Chair: Morrison & Hannah, Knoll, 1974

Chair

Making furniture was fun. We didn’t so much design it as make it. The obvious connection of table top to table leg led to the design of the office chair. This time we were interested in the connection between cushions and frames. We were curious about buttons on furniture, which in the 19th century were developed into an art; they became an important decorative element on furniture. We put the button through the cushion and used it as a connection. Connecting the cushion directly to the frame of the chair. We thought this was a real invention. It turns out it was patented in 1883. Making a plastic office chair was our goal; injection molding two pieces that bolted together was the idea. A top frame, consisting of arms and a seat support, and a four-prong base with casters, attached at the tilt swivel mechanism, with cushions bolted to the top frame. The bolts placed so they deformed the cushions and formed an ergonomically correct seat.

We liked the idea of the ergonomics being disguised by a stylish contrivance, the bolt (button.) The button was a way of creating the form; but it made wrinkles in the fabric. At first people said, “Nobody wants to see wrinkles” so Knoll tried to get rid of them. Finally they admitted defeat and said, “You’re right-you can’t get away from the wrinkles.” That’s an important kind of understanding about design; sometimes you can’t get rid of the wrinkles because the wrinkles are part of what the object is. If we had “designed” the chair instead of building it; I doubt we would have fought so hard to keep it’s wrinkles, the wrinkles were the chair.

The structural frame of the office chair came from placing the arm where you needed it for comfort and to provide a structure to hang the seat cushion and back cushion on. The curves weren’t drawn, they were created three-dimensionally. Formed, tested, and re-formed until they were right. Unfortunately we had to abandon the plastic chair idea and convert the ideas to an aluminum frame. The technology wasn’t ready for the plastic chair. It would take ten years for technology to catch up to the ideas. But we were extremely happy with the aluminum framed office chair, it has a lightness that the plastic chair would never achieve because of the mass of plastic required to create an acceptable structure. Even when I got a chance to design a plastic office chair it still retains a kind of Ken & Barbie look that inevitable seeps into plastic chair forms. They tend to look like Dollhouse furniture no matter what anybody tries–
even the best of them looks contrived, maybe that’s what plastic wants to look like?.

Office Chair, 1974
Andrew Morrison & Bruce Hannah
Knoll, Inc
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Design is a Performing Art
Bruce Hannah 1997© | Illustrations by Bruce Hannah