Bofinger Chair

Designer : Helmut Bätzner

Producer : Bofinger

Date : 1964/66

Country : Germany

Material : fiberglass Fiberglass Glass fiber is a material consisting of numerous extremely fine fibers of glass.Glassmakers throughout history have experimented with glass fibers, but mass manufacture of glass fiber was only made possible with the invention of finer machine tooling... -reinforced polyester resin Polyester resin Polyester resins are unsaturated resins formed by the reaction of dibasic organic acids and polyhydric alcohols. Polyester resins are used in sheet moulding compound, bulk moulding compound and the toner of laser printers...

Style/Tradition : Modern classic

Dimensions: 53x75x44cm (WxHxSeatH)

Colours : white, yellow, black, red, blue, green, brown, orange

The Bofinger Chair, also named BA 1171, was designed by architect and designer Helmut Bätzner in 1964. In close co-operation with Bofinger company, situated in Ilsfeld

Ilsfeld

Ilsfeld is a town in the district of Heilbronn in Baden-Württemberg in Germany. Ilsfeld is twinned with Ottery St Mary , Auenstein and Moşna ....

 in Baden-Württemberg/Germany, under owner and managing director Rudolf Baresel-Bofinger, the Bofinger stacking chair was developed into the first one-piece plastic chair worldwide in fibreglass- reinforced polyester

Polyester

Polyester is a category of polymers which contain the ester functional group in their main chain. Although there are many polyesters, the term "polyester" as a specific material most commonly refers to polyethylene terephthalate...

 to be mass-produced in one single pressing process over a steel mould. The material was dyed all way through before being processed. In a long trial series the characteristic shape of the chair was found in regard to seating shape, maximum stability by smallest quantity of material used, required elasticity, stacking capability, and industrial mass-production. The pressing process in the heated steel mould with a weight of approximately 11 tons lasted under five minutes and required as finishing treatment only simple scraping round the edges to remove excess polyester.
In 1966 the Bofinger Chair made its debut at the furniture fair in Cologne. The same year it received the ‘Rosenthal-Studio’ Award in the presence of Chancellor Ludwig Erhard

Ludwig Erhard

Ludwig Wilhelm Erhard was a German politician affiliated with the CDU and Chancellor of West Germany from 1963 until 1966. He is notable for his leading role in German postwar economic reform and economic recovery , particularly in his role as Minister of Economics under Chancellor Konrad Adenauer...

, Philipp Rosenthal und Walter Gropius

Walter Gropius

Walter Adolph Georg Gropius was a German architect and founder of the Bauhaus School who, along with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modern architecture....

. The Bofinger Chair became a design icon of its time. In 1971 on the occasion of an art happening in Berlin twelve well-known artists - among those Joseph Beuys

Joseph Beuys

Joseph Beuys was a German performance artist, sculptor, installation artist, graphic artist, art theorist and pedagogue of art.His extensive work is grounded in concepts of humanism, social philosophy and anthroposophy; it culminates in his "extended definition of art" and the idea of social...

, Sigmar Polke

Sigmar Polke

Sigmar Polke was a German painter and photographer.Polke experimented with a wide range of styles, subject matter and materials. In the 1970s, he concentrated on photography, returning to paint in the 1980s, when he produced abstract works created by chance through chemical reactions between paint...

, Günther Uecker

Günther Uecker

Günther Uecker, also known as Guenther Uecker, is a German sculptor, op artist and installation artist.- Biography :...

, Wolf Vostell

Wolf Vostell

Wolf Vostell was a German painter, sculptor, noise music maker and Happening artist of the second half of the 20th century. Wolf Vostell is considered one of the pioneers of video art, environment-sculptures, Happenings and the Fluxus Movement...

, and Stefan Wewerka – transformed the Bofinger stacking chair into an art object. Museums, such as the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Vitra Design Museum

Vitra Design Museum

The Vitra Design Museum is an internationally renowned, privately owned museum for design in Weil am Rhein, Germany.Vitra CEO Rolf Fehlbaum founded the museum in 1989 as an independent private foundation...

in Weil am Rhein, included the Bofinger Chair in their collection. The Bofinger Chair is considered one of the most important classics of modern furniture design history.

External links

• http://designwissen.net/seiten/vitra-klassiker
• http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O372072/stacking-chair
• ttp://www.materialatlas.com/topic9813.html