Year: 2020
Producer: Asahi Wood www.asahiwood.co.jp
2,1 kg Elegance chair
The Elegance chair is the story of Danish furniture designer, Hans Sandgren Jakobsen’s deep fascination with Gio Ponti’s super light chair, the 1.7 kg Superleggera, which he describes as “the essence of minimal construction”. It is the story of a long and elaborate design process, in which classical grace and ease meet in a dance of strength and stability. The result is sophisticated weightless elegance!
Lightness united with strength
The story begins in 2018 when the Japanese brand Asahi Wood contacted Hans Sandgren Jakobsen for further collaboration in order to create a furniture series in which elegance, lightness and simplicity are the key words. The sources of inspiration are the Italian architect Gio Ponti’s chair and the classic style icon, Audrey Hepburn.
Initially, Superleggera’s joining techniques were examined by Asahi Wood and the chair was tested against Japanese standards. The Superleggera chair did not make it halfway through the test until it broke!
One of the major technical challenges, therefore, has been to combine lightness with strength, as lightness in the design requires minimal use of material, resulting in a reduction of traditional joints. This has led to a long investigative process of countless experiments with different joining techniques and tests of prototypes.
The final solution is an intricately devised three-layer laminated frame construction. Hereby Hans Sandgren Jakobsen found the perfect formula for the strong and aesthetically beautiful collections and at the same time the three-layer construction made it possible to minimize the weight.
