AX HM11

Overview

AX HM11 is a lounge chair by Hvidt & Mølgaard, dated 1950. The Manufacturer line of the page and the fact sheet reads "Produced in PRC by Nine United Ltd". According to the page, AX is among the first occasions on which plywood was shaped in three dimensions.

Construction

Each side is formpressed oak veneer pressed around a solid walnut insert; the stretchers are turned on a lathe, and seat, back and armrests are formpressed veneer. Finishes: Lacquered Oak and Walnut, or Dark Stained Oak. Plastic gliders.

Specifications

H 73.3 × W 62 × D 71 cm, seat height 39.9 cm, seat depth 53.2 cm, armrest height 61 cm. Weight 6.2 kg. Indoor use. EN 16139 Level 1 (Seating) is the test applied. FSC certified wood; EU Ecolabel certified.

The design

Plywood bent in 3D, in one of its earliest uses, is how the page describes AX. The armrests run in one continuous curve that the frame echoes, which the page links to the duo's training in Danish cabinetry. Their engineering is credited with what the page calls unsurpassed ergonomics, and the chair's reputation as the most comfortable wooden chair of its kind.

The designers

Peter Hvidt (1916-1986) and Orla Mølgaard-Nielsen (1907-1993) met at Kunsthåndværkerskolens Snedkerskole, as the page tells it, and their first success as a design duo was the 1943 competition of the Swedish Slöjdföreningen. The AX chair of 1950 is called a seminal moment for them: a smooth, tightly controlled silhouette that secured their stance as leaders of Danish modernism, in laminated wood that could be mass produced and exported internationally.