Brown Lobby Chair by Charles & Ray Eames - Vitra - Vintage

Brown Lobby Chair by Charles & Ray Eames - Vitra - Vintage

Designer: Charles & Ray Eames
Brand: Vitra
Color: brown
Material: aluminum, leather
Dimensions: H78 x L72 x D70 cm

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The Lobby Chair was designed by Charles & Ray Eames in 1960 for the Time & Life Building at Rockefeller Center in New York. Upholstered in brown Italian leather, it has an aluminum structure. Its armrests are made of foam covered in leather to ensure optimal comfort. It can rotate 360° thanks to its 5 casters. The height of the chair and the inclination of the backrest are adjustable.

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Charles and Ray Eames are a couple of emblematic designers of the 20th century. Very ahead of their time, they contributed to the democratization of designer furniture for the general public, in particular thanks to the invention of new industrial manufacturing techniques allowing mass production.

We owe them many emblematic design pieces from the 1950s and 60s combining comfort and ergonomics: the famous Lounge Chair, the DCW chair (Dining Chair Wood) or the armchair RAR (Rocking Armchair Rodbase).

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Vitra, founded by Willi and Erika Fehlbaum, owners of a store fittings company, entered the furniture market in 1957 with the licensed production of furniture from the Herman Miller collection for the European market, primarily designed by Charles and Ray Eames and George Nelson. In 1967, the company introduced Verner Panton's Panton Chair, the first plastic cantilever chair. In 1977, Rolf Fehlbaum took over the management of Vitra. In 1984, the partnership that had been formed with Herman Miller was terminated by mutual consent. Subsequently, Vitra obtained the rights to the designs of Charles and Ray Eames and George Nelson for Europe and the Middle East.

After a major fire destroyed much of Vitra's production facilities in Weil am Rhein in 1981, British architect Nicholas Grimshaw was commissioned to design new factory buildings and develop a master plan for the company premises. Inspired by his acquaintance with Frank Gehry in the mid-1980s, Vitra moved away from Grimshaw's plan for a unified corporate project. Since then, buildings have been erected on the Vitra grounds in Weil am Rhein by a large group of architects, including Frank Gehry (Vitra Design Museum and Factory Building, 1989), Zaha Hadid (Fire Station, 1993), Tadao Ando (Conference Pavilion, 1993), Alvaro Siza (Factory Building, Passage Cover, Car Parking, 1994),[1] Herzog & de Meuron (VitraHaus, 2010) and SANAA (Factory Building, 2011).

Over the years, Vitra has accumulated a growing collection of chairs and other furniture. With the aim of making the collection accessible to the public, a museum was established as an independent foundation dedicated to the research and popularization of design and architecture. The 1989 Vitra Design Museum by Frank Gehry was the first public building on campus as well as the architect's first building in Europe. Today the museum is based in part on the extensive collection of 20th century furniture as well as a host of traveling exhibitions.