Celebrating the Iconic Womb Chair with MillerKnoll
The Furniture By Perry team traveled to Chicago, Illinois this June to browse the MillerKnoll Design Days showcase, and in turn, joined them in celebrating the 75th anniversary of the iconic Womb Chair from Knoll.
In 1948, Eero Saarinen designed the Womb Chair for Florence Knoll, and it defied the era’s conventions of what a chair could be in terms of the techniques and technology that allowed for its form. At the time, Florence Knoll wanted something that broke free from the rigid structure of lounge chairs of the ’40s, designed to meet society’s expectations of how a woman should sit: upright, ankles crosses, and hands folded.
“I told Eero I was sick and tired of the one-dimensional lounge chair… long and narrow. I want a chair I can sit sideways in or any other way I want,” Florence said in her 1946 request.
Essentially, she wanted something that answered the primal need for comfort, leading to it eventually adapting the name “Womb,” which came from the theory that a great number of people have never really felt comfortable and secure since they left the womb.
To this day, the Womb Chair is still manufactured to its original design, made by hand, and continues to be a top seller for Knoll!
