Mid-Century Modern Dining Chair with Rattan Backrest, 1955

Details

Description

Probably italy or scandinavia (denmark), circa 1960s.
\. Additional product information

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

designer & nationality:
gian franco legler (swiss/switzerland), 1922–2015
… Read more Probably italy or scandinavia (denmark), circa 1960s.
\. Additional product information

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

designer & nationality:
gian franco legler (swiss/switzerland), 1922–2015
swiss-italian industrial designer and interior architect

designer profile:
gian franco legler was a pioneer of industrial design, trained at mit (boston) and with experience in chicago—the center of international design in the 1950s. After returning to switzerland in 1961, he opened his renowned design and architecture firm in zurich, where he worked until 2007.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

design origin & inspiration:
basket chair (1951)

these chairs are inspired by, or directly derived from, the legendary
basket chair, which gian franco legler designed in 1951 for the basket restaurant in italy. The original set consisted of 52 handcrafted chairs,
made by local italian basket weavers and metalworkers.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

precious awards:

good design award – museum of modern art (moma), new york (1953)

the basket chair received the prestigious "good design award" from moma
in new york – one of the world's highest design accolades. Additional recognition came from charles eames, the legendary design pioneer.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

production facility:

probably italy or scandinavia (denmark), circa 1960s

based on the design features, material quality, and construction methods, these chairs were manufactured according to european craftsmanship traditions. According to legler's business model, he imported and distributed italian furniture through his companies in switzerland.
\.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━� ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

special materials & production processes:

1. Wood frame (solid wood frame)

• material: solid european hardwood (beech, ash, or oak)

• construction: handcrafted wood joints with wood glue

• tradition: classic craftsmanship techniques of the european furniture industry

• finish: original finish with an aged patina

2. Hand-woven rattan backrest (hand-woven rattan)

• material: natural rattan from the rattan palm core

• origin: premium quality southeast asia

• weaving method: traditional "randing" – hand-weaving of rattan strands between frame prongs

• weaving pattern: hexagonal weave or classic plating

• craftsmanship: each strand is individually threaded (10–20 hours of work per chair)

• features:

- natural breathability due to the fine weave

- characteristic patina develops with age

- repairable – individual strands can be replaced

- sustainable & renewable

3. Upholstered seat

• base: sturdy wooden frame with wave springs

• padding: foam or springs (original 1960s type)

• cover: high-quality cotton or linen fabric

• pattern: striped design in classic earth tones and blue

• attachment: hand-stitched seams and traditional clamping technique

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

design characteristics:

✓ stackable – classic functional design from the 1960s
✓ organic shapes – curved backrest with a natural flow
✓ minimalist lines – scandinavian influence, no unnecessary embellishments
✓ natural materials – exposed wood and rattan without covering
✓ handcrafted quality – each piece is unique with characteristic
features handcrafted

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

design icon status:

the basket chair by gian franco legler is today a design classic and collector's item. These chairs embody the best of mid-century modern aesthetics: the combination of innovative design with artisanal excellence and sustainable natural materials. I have official proof of authenticity such as vintage catalogs,
designer records,
or other literature sources and take full responsibility for any authenticity issues arising
from
misattribution See less