Plywood Seats 
t 
Stuhl Chair 3100 „Ameise“ “Ant” 
Entwurf Design: Arne Jacobsen, Kopenhagen Copenhagen, 1952 
Ausführung Execution: Fritz Hansen, Dänemark Denmark, 1967; Stahlrohr, 
Sperrholz, Metall, Hartgummi Tubulär steel, plywood, metal, rubber; 
MAK H 3096/1989; Schenkung Donation Doris Weigel 
„Nextmaruni Chair“ 
Entwurf Design: SANAA, Japan, 2005 
Ausführung Execution: Maruni, Japan, 2015; Sperrholz, Stahl Plywood, Steel; 
Privatsammlung Private Collection, Wien Vienna 
Since the middle of the 19th Century plywood 
has been used as a material for chair seats. 
Initially, the plywood boards were still built into 
a frame, later simply laid on bars. Even when 
it was possible to mold the seat and back from 
one single plywood board, the back still had 
to be mounted on a supporting substructure.’ 
In the middle of the 20th Century, chairs with 
plywood seats became modern again: Above 
all, due to improved glue quality, which allowed 
for correspondingly elastic plywood, it was 
then possible not to have to support the back 
any more, but to let the two-dimensionally 
molded “plywood Shells” float freely on the 
substructure. The connection of the seat Shells 
with the base was to be made as invisible as 
possible: In Order not to have to bolt the Steel 
legs of his models individually to the seat, the 
designer Arne Jacobsen developed special 
connectors in which the three or four tubulär 
Steel legs converged. Due to the low material 
thickness of the plywood seats, however, an 
additional small plywood panel on which the 
connecting elements could be screwed had 
to be glued to the underside. The contrast of 
the thin metal legs and the seemingly floating 
plywood Shells created the aesthetic effect of 
these chairs. In contrast to Jacobsen's so- 
called “Ant" from 1952-or also the “rabbit- 
eared” chair from SANAA from the first de- 
cade of the 21 st century-the corresponding 
models with a wooden base seem more con- 
ventional. In addition, the bolt heads remain- 
ed clearly visible when the plywood shell-as 
in the 1957 Thonet model 667 from Edelhard 
“Eddi” Harlis-were bolted directly to the 
base. 2 
1 Cf. Thillmann, Schichten, Munich 2018. See also Christopher Wilk, 
Plywood: A Material Story, London 2017. 
2 The model could also be equipped with-optionally chromed or 
color-lacquered-tubular steel legs. 
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