Republic of Fritz Hansen’s first collaboration with Benjamin Hubert’s Layer firm has made its debut after three years of research and 30 prototypes of the Pair chair™, entering the history of the Danish company and following in its long tradition of using plywood for furniture.
The modular and stackable chair, which made its first appearance at Orgatec 2016, skilfully couples a pressure-curved plywood shell with an injection-molded polycarbonate backrest: a perfect combination of tradition and modernity in an iconic, rigorous shape suitable for many different contexts. Pair™ is available in versions with or without armrests, with four legs or a sled base, in different combinable colors and with an optional cushion.
The new products presented at the last Orgatec included, in addition to Pair™, a limited edition of the Ant chair by Arne Jacobsen, the 3101 Choice 2016 version, which is only on sale for 12 months. Featuring a shell with a special gray stained oak finish and tubular steel legs powder-coated with dark bronze, the historic Danish chair can be bought up until 1 September 2017.
Another completely Danish-inspired product is VIA57™, a lounge chair designed with the KiBiSi firm, founded in Copenhagen by Lars Larsen, Bjarke Ingels and Jens Martin Skibsted, and exported to the United States to furnish the entrance areas of the VIA West Building residential complex, designed by BIG as a skyscraper ‘with a courtyard’ – a hybrid between a North American high-rise and a European building with a courtyard – and operational since May 2016 in New York in West 57th Street on the Hudson river. A padded armchair with a tetrahedral shape, VIA57™ unites comfort and a stylish design and can be combined in comfortable group configurations that are well-suited to both private and public settings.
