1960s Hanging Bubble Chair by G-Plan
About the Item
- Creator:Eero Aarnio (Designer)
- Dimensions:Height: 47.25 in (120 cm)Width: 41.74 in (106 cm)Depth: 37.41 in (95 cm)
- Materials and Techniques:
- Place of Origin:
- Period:
- Date of Manufacture:1968
- Condition:Wear consistent with age and use.
- Seller Location:Brecht, BE
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU240336886613
Eero Aarnio
“I always look ahead, never back,” Finnish design legend Eero Aarnio has been quoted as saying. A leading innovator of modern furniture design, Aarnio has long embraced a bold, playful, confident and colorful style several steps ahead of his time.
For his 1954 entrance test for the Institute of Industrial Arts in Helsinki, Aarnio created a whimsical painting of a man reading a newspaper in a red, curved chair whose silhouette foreshadowed Aarnio’s Ball chair of 1963. That spherical seat skyrocketed him to design fame, and decades later, it is still recognized as one of the world’s most futuristic designs.
Born in 1932 to a house painter and a seamstress, Aarnio has always had a cheerful disposition and an independent spirit. He went his own way early on: After just two years at Asko, the big Scandinavian furniture company that originally produced his Ball chair, Aarnio established his own studio in 1962.
Over the next decade, the young visionary made an indelible mark on the world. Open-minded and entrepreneurial, Aarnio embraced the aesthetics, materials and technologies of the Swinging Sixties, working with a new generation of plastics and molding them into fluid, organically shaped, brightly hued forms.
Introduced at the 1966 Cologne Furniture Fair, the pod-like fiberglass Ball chair soon adorned the homes of movie stars and royalty, graced magazine covers around the world and was featured in films and ads. The groundbreaking seat originally came in orange, white, black, yellow and red and could be ordered with a telephone installed in it. Yet this designer of the future, as he was known in the 1960s, has always insisted that he didn’t deliberately seek to be associated with the decade’s sci-fi aesthetic.
“I had no intention to create either pop or Space Age design — as many people label my work,” Aarnio declares in one of the essays included in Eero Aarnio — Designer of Colour and Joy, a book jointly created by the Design Museum and publisher WSOY to accompany 2016’s “Eero Aarnio” exhibition.
The show featured a number of Aarnio’s objects, including his iconic Ball, Pastil (1967), Bubble (1968), Tomato (1971) and Pony (1973) chairs. These were joined by lesser-known seating and other objects like the rattan Juttujakkara, or mushroom, stool (1960); the sculptural Double Bubble lamp (2000), with which Aarnio first explored the possibilities of rotation-cast plastic; and the three-legged Rocket (1995) and Baby Rocket (2006) stools, both parts of a collection produced by Artek after Tom Dixon, the company’s creative director from 2004 to 2009, discovered the original piece in Aarnio’s kitchen.
“Aarnio expanded the whole idea of what constitutes furniture,” explained Suvi Saloniemi, the Design Museum’s chief curator. “His significance as a designer is crystallized in the liberation of form that he has introduced by discovering the properties of plastic as the material of a designer. His furniture is sculpture-like and eye-catching, but the pieces are always utilitarian at the same time.”
Find an extraordinary range of vintage Eero Aarnio chairs, tables and other furniture on 1stDibs.
You May Also Like
Vintage 1960s Brazilian Mid-Century Modern Sofas
Leather, Rosewood
Mid-20th Century American Hollywood Regency Loveseats
Upholstery, Wood
Vintage 1960s Danish Scandinavian Modern Sofas
Fabric, Hardwood
Vintage 1960s Mid-Century Modern Loveseats
Fabric
Mid-20th Century Danish Mid-Century Modern Loveseats
Fabric, Oak
Vintage 1970s English Mid-Century Modern Sofas
Velvet, Rosewood, Upholstery
Vintage 1960s Italian Modern Armchairs
Steel
Mid-20th Century Brazilian Mid-Century Modern Loveseats
Leather, Hardwood
Mid-20th Century Brazilian Mid-Century Modern Loveseats
Leather, Hardwood
21st Century and Contemporary Italian Modern Loveseats
Plastic
More From This Seller
View AllMid-20th Century Finnish Chairs
Leather, Acrylic
Mid-20th Century French Desks and Writing Tables
Pine
Mid-20th Century North American Tables
Iron
Late 20th Century Dutch Lounge Chairs
Leather
20th Century Danish Chairs
Aluminum
Vintage 1980s French Tables
Metal
Recently Viewed
View AllRead More
The 21 Most Popular Mid-Century Modern Chairs
You know the designs, now get the stories about how they came to be.
The Ball Chair, Eero Aarnio’s Space Age Masterpiece, Was Almost Never Made
Now considered emblematic of 1960s mod aesthetics, the Finnish designer's famous creation was far from an overnight success.