The Japanese-Scandanavian Chair
My obsession with the POÄNG chair
IKEA furniture generally gets a bad rap for being cheap and not long lasting. While I agree with the “cheap” I think the “long lasting” part depends on which piece of furniture you buy from IKEA.
For folks who have visited our home the absence of a sofa is obvious. We have two Ikea chairs that we spend our evenings and weekends lounging on when we are in the living room. I love the chairs and I feel they need some much needed love and attention and hence this blog post.
The chairs I am referring to are from the Poäng Series1. While I can’t pronounce them, I can always identify them based on their unique design. This chair was originally introduced by IKEA in 1976 as POEM. It was made by a Japanese designer named Noboru Nakamura and I guess that makes it a Japanese-Scandanavian piece of furniture that is cheap, durable, aesthetically beautiful and comfortable to lounge in.
As I grow old and develop a weird but firm taste in everything, I realize I prefer my wooden furniture to be made of lighter colored wood and beechwood veneer (the wood that the chair is made of) sort of feels right. The other types of wood that I like a lot these days is - white oak and pine. I have absolutely no clue if they are good or bad or right or wrong for a humid country like Singapore, but well the things seem to have lasted for at least 7 years now.
As you can imagine, I did a bit of a research on this chair before I wrote this, and it also featured at no. 48 on the list of 100 great designs of modern times by Illinois Institute of Design (IIT).
After hours of browsing for lounge chairs and their history on the internet, I understand that the really rich and famous amongst us seem to prefer Herman Miller Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman. It’s like the Rolls Royce of lounge chairs, a symbol of ultimate sophistication and luxury. While I recall seeing it in a lot of Hollywood movies, someday I hope to be able to sit in it. Till then I shall be happy with my poäng.
I have graciously taken the photos from the corporate websites of IKEA and Herman Miller. They are not pictures taken by me. They are not under creative commons and hence I can’t attribute them other than blatanly plagarize them.