Armchair with laminated back, upholstered seat and steel frame, Hille 675 Chair, designed by Robin Day.
Identifier
FPF486
Title
Armchair with laminated back, upholstered seat and steel frame, Hille 675 Chair, designed by Robin Day.
Date
Designed in 1952
Description
Armchair with laminated back, upholstered seat and steel frame, 675 Chair designed by Robin Day and manufactured by Hille.
Full Description
The 675 Chair was designed in 1952 by Robin Day (1915-2010) for S. Hille & Co., London (from 1972, Hille International) (Jackson, 2013). It has a press-formed laminated back and arms in walnut veneer, a plywood seat padded with a latex cushion and covered with an orange fabric cover and a frame of black stove-enamelled steel rod. The 675 chair is derived from the Royal Festival Hall Restaurant and Lounge Chairs designed by Robin Day for Hille, to furnish the new concert hall on London’s South Bank, part of the 1951 Festival of Britain. These earlier chairs featured a complex laminated form for the backs and arms, which he simplified for the 675 model, making it lighter, easier to manufacture and more economical. (Jackson, 2001). The chair was available in a range of veneers: beech, mahogany, walnut, rosewood and ash.
Born in High Wycombe, Day studied at the Royal College of Art in London from 1934-38 where he met his future wife, Lucienne, the renowned fabric designer. The pair represented the progressive spirit of post-war British design; Day’s lifetime ambition was ‘designing things that most people can afford’. In 1949, Day and fellow-designer, Clive Latimer, won a competition organised by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, to design low-cost furniture, with their entry for a modular storage system made of tapered plywood and tubular aluminium. A direct result was Day being employed initially as a director, and later a design consultant, of S. Hille & Co. Ltd., an association that endured for 20 years and helped to make Hille one of the Britain’s most progressive furniture manufacturers.
On the prevalence of steel rod furniture, Day wrote: ‘Economy and ingenuity in the face of timber shortage has sometimes been behind these developments… Constructivist and mobile sculpture and the vivacious and linear drawings of Miro and Klee relate noticeably to much chair design… This apparent lightness can help to give elegance and a sense of space (perhaps the ultimate luxury for any room), and gives dramatic contrast between line and mass (Jackson, 2013).
For other chairs designed by Robin Day see FPF410 and FPF417.
Born in High Wycombe, Day studied at the Royal College of Art in London from 1934-38 where he met his future wife, Lucienne, the renowned fabric designer. The pair represented the progressive spirit of post-war British design; Day’s lifetime ambition was ‘designing things that most people can afford’. In 1949, Day and fellow-designer, Clive Latimer, won a competition organised by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, to design low-cost furniture, with their entry for a modular storage system made of tapered plywood and tubular aluminium. A direct result was Day being employed initially as a director, and later a design consultant, of S. Hille & Co. Ltd., an association that endured for 20 years and helped to make Hille one of the Britain’s most progressive furniture manufacturers.
On the prevalence of steel rod furniture, Day wrote: ‘Economy and ingenuity in the face of timber shortage has sometimes been behind these developments… Constructivist and mobile sculpture and the vivacious and linear drawings of Miro and Klee relate noticeably to much chair design… This apparent lightness can help to give elegance and a sense of space (perhaps the ultimate luxury for any room), and gives dramatic contrast between line and mass (Jackson, 2013).
For other chairs designed by Robin Day see FPF410 and FPF417.
Condition
Good
Materials
Walnut veneered plywood.
Steel.
Upholstery.
Steel.
Upholstery.
Physical Dimensions
H. 77
W. 64
D. 47
W. 64
D. 47
Marks
Marked under seat: ‘Camden Furniture Hire.’
Provenance
Acquired by the Frederick Parker Foundation c.2010.
Notes
L. Jackson, Modern British Furniture Design Since 1945, London, 2013, p. 37.
L. Jackson, Robin and Lucienne Day: Pioneers of Contemporary Design, London, 2001, p. 36, p. 71.
L. Jackson, Robin and Lucienne Day: Pioneers of Contemporary Design, London, 2001, p. 36, p. 71.
