May 4, 2018
Design Duo Yabu Pushelberg on the Bizarre Beauty of their Favorite Klaus Nienkämper Chair
The Toronto and New York-based designers reflect on a Nienkämper-designed 70s-era chair that they just couldn’t get out of their heads.
Some chairs look like sculptures, and some sculptures look like chairs. Then there is this chair (far left, above) by Klaus Nienkämper, which represents the bizarre, strangely beautiful potential of handcrafted functional objects. Klaus was one of the first people to introduce European furniture to the Toronto market, and he has had an incredible influence on contemporary design in this city.
We first saw this chair in Klaus’s showroom in the early ’90s and immediately coveted it. It spoke to us. The chair has this strange quirkiness, and its design certainly doesn’t follow any trends. Klaus made it clear the chair wasn’t for sale. We later learned that it was one of only ten produced in the ’70s. We went on to collect a number of pieces he produced, but couldn’t get the chair out of our heads. It took us 14 years to convince Klaus to sell it to us. We finally bought it in 2005, and it now lives in our New York home. We still love it today as much as we did the first time we saw it.
You might also like, “Designer of Iconic ’60s and ’70s Lighting, Robert Sonneman Is Still Producing Striking New Fixtures.”
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