Womb Chair

Overview

The Womb™ Chair is a fiberglass lounge chair that Knoll dates to 1948, when it was released as Model 70. Eero Saarinen designed it at Florence Knoll's request for a chair like a basket full of pillows. It comes in a Standard and a Medium size, each with a matching ottoman.

Construction

• Seat shell of foam-covered molded fiberglass, handmade from molding to hand-sewn upholstery
• Legs of seamless tubular steel in polished chrome, polished 18k gold plating or black paint
• KnollTextiles fabrics or Spinneybeck leathers
• Knoll's shop FAQ adds a plywood platform under the shell and polyester padding around a foam core

Specifications

• Medium: W 35" × D 31" × H 31¼" (889 × 787 × 794 mm), seat height 15", seat depth 18", arm height 18", weight 31 lb
• Standard: W 40" × D 34" × H 35½", seat height 16", seat width 27", seat depth 24⅞", arm height 20½", weight 36 lb, capacity 275 lb

A chair that could be curled up in

Knoll's design-plan page tells it this way. Saarinen had been exploring a chair whose comfort came from the shape of its shell, not from thick cushioning, after he and Charles Eames won the Museum of Modern Art's Organic Design Competition for bent-plywood experiments. He had started on smaller fiberglass task chairs when Florence Knoll challenged him to do "the big one first": a chair like a basket full of pillows that she could curl up in. Knoll says that is not exactly where he ended up, but it set the idea in motion.

Image source: Knoll — Womb Chair · © Knoll and the respective rights holders. Quoted to accompany INTEBEE's independent design commentary and research. · View official product page ↗ · Image use & copyright policy

A boat builder and a patent

Fiberglass and resin were then new materials, so Saarinen and Florence Knoll turned to a boat builder in New Jersey who was experimenting with them. In Florence Knoll's recollection he was very skeptical, and there were many failures before a workable chair appeared. The chair debuted in 1948 as Model 70, and Knoll's shop page says Saarinen filed a patent for his "shaped chair".