The Egg

The Egg is a chair designed by Arne Jacobsen in 1958 for the Radisson SAS hotel in Copenhagen. It is manufactured by Fritz Hansen.

The Egg was designed in a typical Jacobsen style, where there was no fear of pushing the material to its limit, and often using entirely new materials to make his designs come true.

It is believed to be inspired by Eero Saarinens "Womb chair", from which it gains some traits. In many respects, though, the Egg is a much more complete design.

Related to the Egg is the Swan and, to some degree, many of Jacobsen's plywood chairs such as "7", the Ant, the Cigar, the Grand Prix-chair, the Pot, the Drop and the Giraffe.

The Egg was (as was the Swan) designed as a couch also - though the actual piece was thought to be a figment of someone's imagination, fed by the existence of the Swan-couch. While the Swan-couch is still in production, only a handful of Egg-couches have ever been made. A few were made for the Radisson Hotel, and a few years back, some were made as a "special edition" couch. The price was quite high - about 400.000 dkr., the equivalent of 60,000 USD.

The reason for the limited production of the Egg-couch, besides the wish for exclusivity, is the difficulty involved in making it, plus a design-"flaw"- the couch is too big to be covered by two entire cow-hides, which is only just possible with the Egg-chair. This leaves a very visible stitching down the middle of the couch - definitely not in Jacobsen spirit. This problem can, however, be solved by making the upholstery in fabric rather than leather.

The Egg chair was featured in the movie Men in Black and briefly seen in Back to the Future II, as well as shown in a promotional poster for Chicken Little as a reference to Men in Black.

According to a New York Times article, the Egg chair has also been used by McDonalds as part of a high-concept redesign of one of its restaurants in London.


source: wikipedia