Sep 28, 2009

Hardoy Butterfly Chair


Steven and Jeff, the owners over at Circa50, emailed me this weekend to talk about the famous Hardoy Butterfly Chairs. It was so funny, because we were just then deciding if we were going to use them at our wedding. They are placed around a firepit at The Parker where we will have our cocktail hour. I think they look great and would be fantastic for a small group, but we decided to take them out in the end to give people more room to schmooze.

The chair was first produced in 1938 by designer Jorge Ferrari Hardoy who sent just three pre-production models to the U.S. at the request of the Museum of Modern Art. One is in MoMA's collection and one is at the Frank Lloyd Wright house Fallingwater, but no one knows where the third went (your garage?). In 1947, Knoll produced the Butterfly chair, but four years later after losing a copyright infringement case against a competitor, they dropped it from their line. From that point on, millions of butterfly chairs were sold.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Despite being an icon of modern design, butterfly chairs manage to be among the most uncomfortable in existence! Good choice to forego them.

Toni Youngblood, aka "Sparky" said...

I find the butterfly chair to be very comfortable. I did have an older guest (actually a couple of years younger than myself) who couldn't get out of the chair without help. She's not in very good physical shape, however.

das boot said...

There very cool and contemporary. The circle looks cozy yet chic too. Still can't understand why these chairs cost so much retail?