Single Blue Eero Saarinen for Knoll Womb Chair
View Similar Items
Single Blue Eero Saarinen for Knoll Womb Chair
About the Item
- Creator:Knoll (Maker),Eero Saarinen (Designer)
- Design:
- Dimensions:Height: 36.38 in (92.41 cm)Width: 41 in (104.14 cm)Depth: 36 in (91.44 cm)Seat Height: 16 in (40.64 cm)
- Style:Mid-Century Modern (Of the Period)
- Materials and Techniques:
- Place of Origin:
- Period:1980-1989
- Date of Manufacture:1980s
- Condition:Wear consistent with age and use.
- Seller Location:Houston, TX
- Reference Number:Seller: CF1121stDibs: LU1060626484092
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.
- "Tail Feathers" Pink and Black Floral Accent ChairLocated in Houston, TXJoy, laughter, and the unexpected are at the heart of Annie Evelyn’s work. Employing a range of materials and processes (tessellating metal pieces to create soft upholstered seating or embedding fresh cut flowers to add aroma), Evelyn uses furniture...Category
2010s American Side Chairs
MaterialsFabric, Wood
$1,537 Sale Price25% Off - Custom Green Dyed French Armchair with Tropical Palm Tree UpholsteryBy Baker Furniture CompanyLocated in Houston, TXBeautiful Louis the XV style green dyed French armchair with custom pink tropical upholstery featuring a floral palm tree design.Category
20th Century French Modern Armchairs
MaterialsWood, Fabric
$1,350 Sale Price25% Off - Modern Bronze Sculptural Walnut Dining Table with Bronze Leg Signed Oskar KogojBy Oskar KogojLocated in Houston, TXStunning modern bronze sculptural dining table in walnut. It is made by Oskar Kogoj, and the table has aesthetic sculptural detailing on one end. The table leg is made of bronze and ...Category
Vintage 1970s Slovenian Modern Dining Room Tables
MaterialsBronze
- Stunning Custom Contemporary Modern Sideboard with Gustav Klimt Style PaintingBy Gustav Klimt, Reeves Design + ArtLocated in Houston, TXStunning custom contemporary modern sideboard with Gustav Klimt Style Painting. This handmade sideboard was custom made in Houston, Texas in collaboration ...Category
2010s American Modern Sideboards
MaterialsBirch
$5,437 Sale Price20% Off - Stunning Custom Contemporary Modern Sideboard with Frank Trocino PaintingBy Reeves Design + ArtLocated in Houston, TXStunning custom contemporary modern sideboard with light green toned abstract figurative painting. This handmade sideboard was custom mad...Category
2010s American Post-Modern Sideboards
MaterialsOak
$5,625 Sale Price25% Off - Stunning Custom Scandinavian Modern Small Chest by Norm StoekerBy Norm StoekerLocated in Houston, TXStunning custom Scandinavian modern small chest by norm stoeker. The three exposed Egyptian blue drawers are made with master craftsmanship surrounded by ...Category
2010s American Night Stands
MaterialsMaple
$1,650 Sale Price25% Off
- Eero Saarinen for Knoll Boucle Womb Chair, 2019By Eero Saarinen, KnollLocated 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
$4,640 Sale Price20% Off - 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
- 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 - Eero Saarinen for Knoll Womb Chair is French BoucleBy Knoll, Eero SaarinenLocated in Dallas, TXAn iconic Eero Saarinen for Knoll womb chair newly upholstered in a very high-quality French bouclé. The colors include yellow/gold, sienna browns and white. This pairs beautifully with one of the Dunbar sofas we have reupholstered in yellow/dijon mohair. Please visit circa20c...Category
20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Lounge Chairs
MaterialsMetal
- 1960's Eero Saarinen for Knoll Womb Chair and OttomanBy Eero Saarinen, KnollLocated in Palm Springs, CAA lovely example of the Iconic Womb Chair and Ottoman designed by Eero Saarinen for Knoll. We have had it re-upholstered in a genuine Knoll fabric, Crossroads in a Honey Bee color. T...Category
Vintage 1960s American Mid-Century Modern Lounge Chairs
MaterialsSteel
- Eero Saarinen vintage Womb Chair and Ottoman for KnollBy Knoll, Eero SaarinenLocated in Houston, TXEero Saarinen Knoll International USA 1946 upholstery, painted steel chair: 35 h × 41 w × 35 d inches Vintage Eero Saarinen womb chair and ottoman for Knoll...Category
Mid-20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Lounge Chairs
MaterialsSteel