Tuesday, April 26, 2011

I Guess You Heard About The Tornadoes In St. Louis This Weekend. Missed Me By A Hare's Breath. Whew. Oh, And I Got A Cool Pair Of Chairs! Status: I Guess I Must Be Livin' Right.

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Yup, dodged a bullet...barely. Tornadoes tore St. Louis up again this weekend, this time just a few miles away from me. The Airport and surrounding areas took the brunt of Mother Nature's Love. But you can all breathe a sigh of relief because amidst all the senseless destruction, I did manage to keep buying stuff I don't need. ...but it is really really cool stuff!


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Yeah, suweet right? I got a pair of Hans Wegner style folding chairs. Thank you craigslist. The

seller listed them Sunday evening about 6 pm and I spotted them about 7 pm. By 8 pm I was

driving home with them.

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I've never had an opportunity to check out this style of danish seating before and was

surprised at how wide they are. I've seen them in pictures before but they always seemed much

more narrow than this. Oh, and they are super comfortable. The low height might be a problem

for some but they are otherwise loungerific. For being maybe 40 years old the construction is

still nice and tight too.

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And what is the deal with all this great Danish Modern furniture being "Made In Yugoslavia"?

Cheap European labor? I found a great Wegner style rocking chair at the Goodwill about a

year ago that was also made in Yugoslavia and I've seen many a lounge chair made there as

well. Is Yugoslavia the Mexico of Europe?

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So let's see...beautiful...check, comfortable...check, oh yeah...almost forgot, they fold up for

storage! Convenience! What's not to love?

5 comments:

  1. These chairs are so gorgeous!! We had one at one point but maybe we were sitting in it wrong because it was really uncomfortable - the bar that slides up under the thigh area just cut into our legs! They sure are easy on the eyes though.

    I heard at one point that these were sold in Pier 1 back in the 60s and 70s (I had no idea they have been around that long!).

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  2. Glad to hear you, the Girlfriend and the Garage are OK. These chairs are pretty fab. They will be great for extra party seating.

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  3. beautiful chairs! lucky guy! have to tell you I met your sister Rhonda today at Metro Lighting. She is very nice and so helpful. I had to have a retro lamp fixed and she said her brother would love this and I told her I was really into mid century...and she said I should check out her brothers blog, he is in the area, and I said who is it and she said Mr. Modtomic and I said, oh my gosh I read his blog every day! small world, just thought I'd pass that on. are you planning on posting the chairs on CL? where is the link to your moms blog? or did you just do a post on her?
    Sue

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  4. Hi,

    Just found your blog, and saw these great looking chairs. The stamp "made in yugoslavia" means it is probably made in Stol factory in Slovenia, which also produce famous Rex chair and table designed by Niko Kralj, who is only designer from ex Yugo that has his design piece in NY MOMA.
    Influence came obviously from Ilmari Tapiovaara, that was of course influenced by Aalto Alvar. Tapiovaara was in ex Yugo, in Stol factory helping and introducing design, and manufacture and producing processes to Stol factory. It was I think under the UN ingerence, and Tapiovaara used to do that kind of work in other countries in the world also.

    Hope this info helps, keep up with the good work, bye from Croatia/Europe
    Dubravko

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  5. Those chairs are Yugoslavian knock-offs of a classic Hans Wegner chair design. They weren't the Mexico of Europe, they were the China of Europe.

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