CH24 Wishbone Chair

CH24 Wishbone Chair
Hans J Wenger
1950 for Carl Hansen & Son

In 1944 Hans J Wenger started creating a series of chairs inspired by classic portraits of Danish merchants sitting in Chinese Ming Dynasty chairs. The Wishbone Chair is the culmination of that research. Designed in 1949 by Wenger for Carl Hansen & Sons it was one of the first chairs made by the company in 1950. It is still produced by them today and is Wenger’s most commercially successful design. The process of creating the chairs takes over 100 steps and is still carried out by skilled craftspeople, using robust wood and paper cord.

Wenger, an Architect, was constantly striving to distill design into its simplest form. This chair is a great representation of this thought process – as Wegner combined the back and arm rests making them out of one piece of steam-bent wood. “Many foreigners have asked me how we made the Danish style. And I’ve answered that it…was rather a continuous process of purification, and for me of simplification, to cut down to the simplest possible elements of four legs, a seat and combined top rail and arm rest.”

Also known as the ‘Y’ chair, because of its distinctive Y shaped back support, or simply by some as ‘The Chair’ it is normal to see the Wishbone Chair placed around a dining table. But due to being incredibly comfortable and allowing multiple seating positions, it also works as a standalone piece.