Blue Djinn Lounge Chair by Olivier Mourgue – Design Icons 2024 – 15

Blue Djinn Lounge Chair by Olivier Mourgue – Design Icons 2024 – 15

Via VNTG and Kreuzer Modern

About Olivier Mourge

Industrial designer Olivier Mourgue was born in 1939 in Paris, France. He obtained a degree in Interior Design from the Ecole Boulle and in Furniture Design from Ecole Nationale Superieure des Arts Decoratifs in Paris, graduating in 1960. He also trained in Finland and Sweden under Maurice Holland of Nordiska Kompaniet in Stockholm.

In 1963, he began his most fruitful collaboration: working for Airborne International, where he designed his infamous Djinn Series (1965), named after a supernatural Djinn (or genie) from Arabian fairy tales that could assume human or animal form. The collection’s anthropomorphic qualities were representative of a new direction in sculptural furniture design. The most well-known of the series is the undulating Djinn Chair (1965), which found fame after it was featured in Stanley Kubrick’s futuristic film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).

Mourgue also worked for the Agence d’Architecture Interieure Gautier-Delaye while at Airborne, before establishing his own studio in 1966, designing furniture for Disderot, Renault, Prisunic, and Mobilier National.

In the 1960s, Morgue became well known for his futuristic and Pop Art inspired furniture that was flexible and practical—he created removable covers in bright colors that were easily changed, providing new identities to his pieces. Mourgue’s standout designs from this period include the Bouloum Chair (1969) for Airborne; Joker Lounge Chair (1960s); Whist Chair and Ottoman (1964); Montreal Series (1967); Cubique Chair (1968)—which won the AID International Design Award; and Flower Lamp (1970) for Disderot.

Following in the footsteps of iconic designers Verner Panton (1968 and 1970) and Joe Colombo (1969), the chemical corporation Bayer AG chose Mourgue as the third designer for Visiona—an exhibition held on board a boat during the Cologne Furniture Fair, for which a designer was charged with transforming the exhibition space into a futuristic world. In 1971, Mourgue created an entire natural landscape with carpets and textiles that resembled grass, rivers and other natural floor coverings. Presented as a platform to showcase innovative ideas, Mourgue’s Visiona 3 is considered an exemplar of the avant-garde philosophy that dominated the design world in the late 1960s and early 1970s, as well as being representative of Mourgue’s own style.

In 1976, Mourgue closed his studio and moved to Brittany where he became a professor at the school of Fine Arts in Brest. He currently resides in Plouguiel, a small town in the same region.

Although Airborne no longer exists, some of Mourgue’s designs for the French company continue to be produced under license by other manufacturers.

Via Disderot

Bauhaus Cantilever Lounge Chair by Paul Schuitema

Bauhaus Cantilever Lounge Chair by Paul Schuitema

Via 1stdibs

Red Djinn 2 Seater by Olivier Mourgue – Design Icons 2024 – 14

Red Djinn 2 Seater by Olivier Mourgue

Red Djinn by Olivier Mourgue – Design Icons 2024 – 14

Finally my own photo.

Via VNTG and via Timeless Art. They ask Euro 4,500…

Model 36 Lounge Chair by Karl Mathsson – Design Icons 2024 – 13

Model 36 Lounge Chair by Karl Mathsson – Design Icons 2024 – 13

Sweden, 1937
Via Vntg and Paulette in ‘t Stad. Asking €2,750.00.

Karl Mathsson was the fifth generation in a family of master cabinet makers. He was the father of Bruno Mathsson.

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Chairs!
gje

Chair by Søren Hansen 1930


Chair by Søren Hansen 1930

I found this chair at Danish Design Review with some interesting notes:

Fritz Hansen Eftf produced a number of chairs in bentwood and plywood between 1928 and 1948. Generally, these bentwood chairs in beech are referred to as DAN chairs.

This chair from 1930 was designed by Søren Hansen – the grandson of Fritz Hansen who founded the furniture company. It takes as a starting point the famous chairs by Thonet – the Austrian company – that date from the 19th century but simplifies the form. In both chairs, the back posts and the back rest are made from a single piece of steam-bent wood but, in the Danish version, the back rest forms a more generous and perhaps an even-more extravagant loop.

The chair by Søren Hansen has a rounded but not circular seat – with a piece of plywood that was dropped into a rebate in the frame – and, like the Austrian chair, it has a closed bentwood hoop below the seat that reinforces the frame and keeps the legs in place so has the function of the stretchers in a traditional wood chair.

From below it is possible to see that there is also a robust cross bar to the loop of the back that supports the back edge of the seat and carries much of the weight of the person sitting in the chair.

Rather than using traditional mortice-and-tenon joints – normal in the work of a cabinetmaker – the separate parts of this chair are fixed together with screws and bolts so, like the Thonet chair, it seems to mark an intermediate stage between cabinet making and the later industrial production or factory production of furniture that did not require workbench woodworking skills.

The back of the chair is lower and broader than the Austrian design so supports the back more and the pronounced backward curve of the back posts of the DAN chair have more than an echo of the the Klismos type and the downward angle of the truncated or incipient elbow rests surely show a form that was picked up by Wegner for his Chinese chairs and the Wishbone Chair twenty years later.

Thonet has inspired more scandinavian design then I would imagine when I started this blog back in 2007