Womb Chair & Ottoman

Womb Chair & Ottoman
Eero Saarinen (1910 — 1961)
1948 for Knoll

The Womb Chair was conceived after a collaborative attempt by Eero Saarinen and Charles Eames to mould laminated wood. Eero took what he had learnt through their experimentation and created the chair that allows for a variety of seating positions and envelopes the user, as if they were safe in their mother’s womb. The brief from was to create a chair that one could curl up in and read a book.

Sarrinen, a Finnish born architect and furniture designer, is best known for helping to shape the identity of 20th century America with his St.Louis Gateway Arch, General Motors Technical Center in Detroit and the TWA Terminal at New York’s John F Kennedy Airport. He applied the same imagination and sculptural form to his furniture design as he did his buildings. A residential project of note is ‘Miller House’ and Garden (1953 – 57) located in Columbus, Indiana which now belongs to the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

Along with Charles Eames, Saarinen also studied with Ray Eames, Harry Bertoia, Don Albinson and Florence Knoll under his father, the acclaimed Eliel Saarinen, at the Cranbrook Academy of Art. It is Saarinen’s contact with Knoll that enabled the first moulded fiberglass chair to be produced in large numbers.