Early Womb Chair by Eero Saarinen for Knoll International, 1968
View Similar Items
Early Womb Chair by Eero Saarinen for Knoll International, 1968
About the Item
- Creator:Eero Saarinen (Designer)
- Design:
- Dimensions:Height: 35.5 in (90.17 cm)Width: 39 in (99.06 cm)Depth: 36 in (91.44 cm)Seat Height: 16 in (40.64 cm)
- Style:Mid-Century Modern (Of the Period)
- Materials and Techniques:
- Period:
- Date of Manufacture:1968
- Condition:Wear consistent with age and use. Overall very good condition. Please note: the back cushion is missing. Foam is still plush. No rips to the fabric.
- Seller Location:Chicago, IL
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU7362237406312
Womb Chair
Shortly after Eero Saarinen (1910–61) joined Florence Knoll at the manufacturer she had established with her husband, Hans, she presented the Finnish-born designer with a serious request: to create for her the world’s most comfortable chair, something, Saarinen recalls, that felt like “a basket full of pillows.”
Presented with the challenge, Saarinen went primal. What, the designer figured, better signifies the very essence of comfort than the womb? "It was designed on the theory that a great number of people have never really felt comfortable and secure since they left the womb,” the designer said of his chair, which began production in 1948. “The chair is an attempt to rectify this maladjustment in our civilization.”
The Womb chair, like many other masterpieces of modernist design, is genius in its simplicity. Comprised of few materials, the chair consists of a fabric-wrapped, molded fiberglass bucket set atop legs of tubular steel. The skeletal look of the frame keeps the chair from appearing bulky despite the seat’s oversized silhouette, which makes it inviting to people of all sizes.
"There seemed to be a need for a large and really comfortable chair to take the place of the old overstuffed chair,” Saarinen once said of his concept. Indeed, despite being indisputably comfortable, the Womb doesn’t require an abundance of padding and tufting — instead, its comfort owes to a perfectly shaped shell of fiberglass. This new approach to ergonomics both reflected Saarinen’s love of streamlined forms and echoed the kind of experimental work being done by American designers Charles and Ray Eames, who, like Florence Knoll, were friends he'd made at Cranbrook Academy of Art while he taught there.
It didn’t take long for the chair to become a cultural phenomenon; in the decade following its release, it appeared in a Coca-Cola commercial, a New Yorker cartoon and in a Norman Rockwell painting on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post. Today, Knoll offers the seat in some 15 upholstery options, and when Saarinen’s famous TWA terminal reopened as a hotel in 2019, Womb chairs featured prominently in the guest rooms, continuing the legacy of this classic design.
Eero Saarinen
Through his work as an architect and designer, Eero Saarinen was a prime mover in the introduction of modernism into the American mainstream. Particularly affecting were the organic, curvilinear forms seen in Saarinen’s furniture and his best-known structures: the gull-winged TWA Flight Center at John F. Kennedy airport in New York (opened 1962), Dulles International Airport in Virginia (1962) and the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri (1965).
Saarinen had a peerless modernist pedigree. His father, Eliel Saarinen, was an eminent Finnish architect who in 1932 became the first head of the Cranbrook Academy of Art in suburban Detroit. The school became synonymous with progressive design and decorative arts in the United States, and while studying there the younger Saarinen met and befriended several luminaries of mid-century modernism, among them Harry Bertoia and Charles and Ray Eames.
At Cranbrook, Saarinen also met Florence Schust Knoll, who, as director of her husband Hans Knoll's eponymous furniture company, would put Saarinen’s best designs into production. These include the Grasshopper chair, designed in 1946 and so named because its angled bentwood frame resembles the insect; the Tulip chair (1957), a flower-shaped fiberglass shell mounted on a cast-aluminum pedestal; and the lushly contoured Womb lounge chair and ottoman (1948). In his furniture as in his architecture, the keynotes of Eero Saarinen’s designs are simplicity, strength and grace.
Find vintage Eero Saarinen tables, chairs and other furniture on 1stDibs.
- Knoll Eero Saarinen Executive Chair, Armchair black upholsteryBy Eero SaarinenLocated in Chicago, ILThis for (1) Saarinen Executive Chair, armchair version. Knoll, Circa 1985. Black upholstery, chrome legs. Priced individually. (4) available. Originally designed in 1946, these h...Category
Vintage 1980s Mid-Century Modern Armchairs
MaterialsChrome
- 1960's Eero Saarinen Tulip dining chairs for Knoll, set of 4 upholsteredBy Eero Saarinen, KnollLocated in Chicago, ILEero Saarinen Tulip chairs, armless with off-white upholstery. by Knoll, USA Set of 4 chairs Manufacturer "Park Avenue" labels attached underneath cushions. Please note these do not...Category
Vintage 1970s American Mid-Century Modern Dining Room Chairs
MaterialsFiberglass
$3,760 Sale Price / set20% Off - Set of 2 Warren Platner Lounge Chairs for Knoll International, blue upholsteryBy Warren PlatnerLocated in Chicago, ILPair of Warren Platner Lounge Chairs for Knoll International. Blue upholstery, nickel frame. Earlier editions. The Platner Collection (1966) reflects his belief that there’s room i...Category
Vintage 1970s Mid-Century Modern Lounge Chairs
MaterialsNickel
$7,160 Sale Price / set20% Off - Very early Eero Saarinen for Knoll Tulip table, oval shaped top circa 1957Located in Chicago, ILEero Saarinen for Knoll Associates Tulip occasional table model 161F USA, circa 1957 Enameled cast iron base, laminate over plywood top 20.5" h × 22.5" w × 15"D with fabric manufact...Category
Vintage 1950s Side Tables
MaterialsLaminate
- Frank Gehry Power Play Chair for Knoll, Black LacqueredBy Frank Gehry, KnollLocated in Chicago, ILFrank Gehry Power Play chair. Hard maple, black finish. Frame constructed of hard white maple veneer strips. The underside of both piece...Category
1990s Post-Modern Lounge Chairs
MaterialsMaple
- Pair of Frank Gehry Power Play Chairs for Knoll, Black LacqueredBy Frank Gehry, KnollLocated in Chicago, ILPair of Frank Gehry Power Play chairs. Hard maple, black finish. Frame constructed of hard white maple veneer strips. The underside of both...Category
1990s Post-Modern Lounge Chairs
MaterialsMaple
- Early Eero Saarinen for Knoll Womb Chair, 1950By Knoll, Eero SaarinenLocated in Chicago, ILEarly Eero Saarinen for Knoll Womb Chair, 1950. Upholstery is all original. We have in house upholstery if interested for an additional charge....Category
Vintage 1950s American Mid-Century Modern Lounge Chairs
MaterialsIron
- Early Wool Womb Chair by Eero Saarinen for Knoll, 1960sBy Knoll, Eero SaarinenLocated in Aachen, NWEarly 2-tone wool Womb chair by Eero Saarinen for Knoll. The groundbreaking Womb chair was designed in 1948 by Eero Saarinen at Florence Knoll's request for "a chair that was lik...Category
Mid-20th Century American Lounge Chairs
MaterialsAluminum
$7,120 Sale Price20% Off - Womb Chair & Ottoman by Eero Saarinen for KnollBy Eero SaarinenLocated in Dallas, TXA womb chair and ottoman designed by Eero Saarinen for Knoll upholstered in baroque fabric.Category
Vintage 1960s Lounge Chairs
MaterialsFabric
- Eero Saarinen for Knoll Boucle Womb Chair, 2019By Knoll, Eero SaarinenLocated in Costa Mesa, CAEero Saarinen for Knoll Boucle Womb Chair, 2019. Covered in custom Flax Boucle from Knoll. The expressive sculptural forms of the Eero Saarinen Wom...Category
21st Century and Contemporary North American Mid-Century Modern Lounge C...
MaterialsBouclé
- Eero Saarinen for Knoll Womb Chair and OttomanBy Knoll, Eero SaarinenLocated in Philadelphia, PAEero Saarinen for Knoll Womb Chair and ottoman. Probably one of the most comfortable chairs ever created! This chair and ottoman d...Category
Vintage 1960s American Mid-Century Modern Lounge Chairs
MaterialsMetal
$6,800 / set - Classic Early Production Eero Saarinen for Knoll Womb Chair with OttomanBy Knoll, Eero SaarinenLocated in Ferndale, MIShortly after Florence Knoll joined her husband, Hans in the running of Knoll , she presented the Finnish-born designer Eero Saarinen with a request: to create for her the world’s mo...Category
Mid-20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Lounge Chairs
MaterialsSteel, Wrought Iron