Pair of Halabala H-269 Mid-Century Sheepskin Armchairs

With its curvilinear silhouette, ample cushioning and cantilevered frame, the H269 chair is among the most beloved designs to come out of Czechoslovakia. Jindrich Halabala (1903–78) created the chair in the 1930s while working as head designer for the prominent state-owned manufacturing studio United Arts and Crafts Manufacture (known as UP).

Constructed from bentwood, which sees wood soaked or steamed with water so that it becomes malleable enough to bend into elegant forms, the H269’s instantly recognizable exaggerated arms give way to a graceful curve that extends straight down to the cantilevered foundation.

Halabala helped introduce a new age of industrial furniture design and mass production while at UP, driven by a focus on creating affordable, innovative furniture that was highly functional as well as widely available. More specifically, he helped revolutionize the modular furniture trend, using simple shapes like the “H” and “E” chairs to standardize the idea of straightforward design.

Halabala remained at UP from the 1930s through the mid-’40s and worked mostly in the modernist and Art Deco modes to design chairs, sideboards, tables, sofas and floor lamps. To create these pieces, he often used tubular steel or bentwood, as with the H269. Like many of his European contemporaries, Halabala’s work can be found in revered museums. And every year, a student competition sponsored by Mendel University in Brno and the Technical University in Zvolen presents awards to aspiring furniture design students in his name.

Vintage H269 armchairs manufactured by Thonet can be found on the secondary market, while Modernista in the Czech Republic currently produces new editions of this design.

Thanks to design lovers’ enthusiasm for Art Deco and mid-century modern furniture, and the increasingly competitive market for pieces by more famous creators, 20th-century Czech designers are making their way back onto the international stage. Foremost among these talents is Jindrich Halabala.

Halabala was a cabinetmaker’s son whose training was almost wholly focused on woodwork, first at a state-run vocational school for woodworking in Valašské Meziříčí and later at UP Závody in Brno, where he ultimately became chief designer. His curvaceous bentwood H chairs, such as the H269 and H237, and stylized ottomans have become classics, while his 1930s and 1940s sofas, tables and storage cabinets, with their sweeping curves, stylized geometry and dark, richly grained wood, embody the best of Art Deco furniture design, a style that was brought to worldwide attention at an exhibition in Paris in 1925.

Some see Halabala's work as the segue between early 1900s Czech Cubism and the modern style that dominated the mid-century.

Find a collection of vintage Jindrich Halabala furniture today on 1stDibs.