Material Imitation
Sessel Chair
Entwurf und Ausführung Design and execution: unbekannt unknown,
um ca. 1990; Stahlrohr, Blech Tubulär Steel, sheet metal;
MAKH 3984/2019
In 1964 Gillis Lundgren designed a bentwood
chair for IKEA that could barely conceal its
similarity to the Thonet model No. 18. In 1983,
however, the Swedish Company came up with
something original when it had the idea of pro-
ducing the model, christened “Ögla” in plastic.
As in the case of the iron garden chairs from
the second half of the 19th Century, which re-
produced the shape of various Thonet models,
here the characteristic design language of the
bentwood chairs, which had evolved from the
specific properties of the material, was repro-
duced in a completely different material. But
while the bent iron bars of the garden chairs
have a formal similarity to bentwood rods, plas-
tics have the ability to take on almost any
shape. Given these virtually unlimited
possibilities, there is no real reason to copy
bentwood chairs, with their individual parts
screwed together, in plastic. Especially models
cast out of one material in a mold, such as the
famous Monoblocs, can be made much easier,
cheaper, and more efficiently from plastic. 1 On
the other hand, there seems to be a market
for such material imitations: Not only is the
“Ögla” chair 2 still available at IKEA, but in
recent decades, metal garden furniture has
again and again been inspired by the bent
wood shapes of the Thonet chairs-and there-
by even the characteristic Viennese cane has
been modeled in sheet metal.
1 Gerda Breuer, Die Erfindung des moderne Klassikers. Avantgarde
und ewige Aktualität, Ostfildern-Riut, 2001, 73.
2 Since the 2010s, u Ögla”-following the ecological Zeitgeist-has
been produced from a wood-plastic composite (WPC).
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Sessel Chair „Ögla“ (nach Thonet Nr. 18 after Thonet No. 18)
Entwurf Design: Gillis Lundgren, Schweden Sweden, 1964
Ausführung Execution: IKEA, Schweden Sweden, um ca. 1990;
Kunststoff Plastic; MAK H 3983/2019
Sessel Chair „Dorotea“
Entwurf Design: Erik Worts, Schweden Sweden, um ca. 1965
Ausführung Execution: IKEA, Schweden Sweden, um ca. 1990;
Kunststoff Plastic; MAK H 3982/2019
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