Designed by Jean Prouvé. Designed in 1934, the Standard Chair is the quintessential 20th Century design classic. The engineer and designer Jean Prouvé understood that chairs take the most stress on their back legs, where they bear the weight of the user's upper body. He illustrated this simple insight in his distinctive design for the Standard chair: steel tubing suffices for the front legs, but the back legs are made of voluminous hollow sections that transfer most of the weight to the floor.

The colours Prouvé developed for the steel elements of his furniture (and his architecture) drew on various references – from his Blé Vert, which describes the colour of young green wheat, to Gris Vermeer, which alludes to the grey tones in the work of the painter Johannes Vermeer.
According to Prouvé, who believed in the ‘nature of a material’, only parts in danger of corroding should be painted, which is why he left wooden and aluminium elements in an untreated state whenever possible.

Details

Materials
Seat and backrest: oak (natural or dark finish) or walnut (black-pigmented finish), USA.
Base: bent sheet steel and tubular steel, powder-coated finish (smooth).

Dimensions
Height 820 × Width 420 × Depth 490mm
Seat Height 465mm