Here Are the 12 Best Midcentury-Inspired Dining Chairs We’re Currently Coveting
Pull up a seat in one of these Dwell-approved seating options that can also moonlight as office chairs when work takes you to the dining room.
Pull up a seat in one of these Dwell-approved seating options that can also moonlight as office chairs when work takes you to the dining room.
Kick up your feet in the Branch Cafe Chair. Clad in bright colors and swooping lines, the Cafe Chair is a playful and stackable seating solution for breakout rooms, kitchen and cafe spaces, and causal areas of all kinds. The Cafe Chair mates comfort, durability and style: a contoured backrest and spacious seat meet impact resistant plastic to create years of use in high-traffic areas. Chairs stack to make storage a cinch. There’s something about Tereza. Full of spunk, verve, and brazen determination. She’s a simple modern beauty with just a hint of surprise. Her curved backrest offers the faintest curve (you could hardly call it a hug) to stabilize her occupant’s spine just so, then dips into an unexpected angle before dropping to her hind legs. Upholstery wraps neatly to the seat’s edges. Appearing to be a standard stool, upon closer look, she exposes an unanticipated twist. Arne Jacobsen helped shape design history when he accommodated three different bends in one piece of plywood, simply by narrowing the center. The resulting Ant Chair (1952) has a back with a gentle give and comfortable curved seat. When it was first designed, Jacobsen told the manufacturer that he’d buy all the chairs if they didn’t sell. Of course, he never had to make good on that offer, as the Ant Chair quickly became an international success. This is the authentic Ant Chair. Made in Denmark. Matthew Hilton created the Profile Chair (2005) to accompany his Cross Extension Table, which was honored with the 2006 Elle Decoration Best in Furniture Award. An ergonomic solution for dining, this chair is simply shaped with splayed legs and an angled back that’s curved for comfortable support. The padded seat is upholstered in aniline-dyed leather, while the durably constructed frame is made of solid oak or walnut. The Profile Chair is conveniently stackable up to six high. Walnut chair made in Thailand, oak in Lithuania. Photo Courtesy of Design Within Reach Brothers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec founded their Paris-based design firm in 1999, where they design architectural projects, large-scale art installations, furniture, rugs, tableware and home accessories. Their work has been exhibited worldwide, from MoMA in New York to Centre Pompidou in Paris to Tel Aviv Museum of Art. For the Danish design collective HAY, the brothers designed the Elementaire Side Chair (2018), which appears delicate but is strong enough for everyday use. "The starting point was to do a plastic chair that does not look like a plastic chair," says Ronan. "Elementaire is a mix of simplicity and delicacy, and that’s it." The design of this chair was also an opportunity for the Bouroullecs to prove that even when you’re making a mass-produced plastic chair, you don’t have to sacrifice form or color." We wanted to make an inexpensive chair and make it as beautiful as possible," says Erwan. "It’s beautiful in terms of being extremely well designed. It’s not too loud, not too shy, just exactly balanced." Crafted from UV-resistant polypropylene. Made in Denmark. Industrial designers Alex Selma and Clara del Portillo met at an exhibition for young designers in 2004. Two years later, they founded their studio and launched their first collection as Yonoh, an ambigram – a word that retains meaning even when its letters are flipped over or reversed – they invented to express the bicephalic (two-headed) character of their own approach. For the furniture company Ton, they created the Valencia Collection (2018), named for the Spanish city where Yonoh is based. With its ergonomic form, solid wood construction, steam-bent legs and generous backrest, Valencia has all the makings of a classic that will last for generations but never bore. Chair stacks up to six high. Made in the Czech Republic. Three years after designing his iconic Wassily Chair, which is believed to be the first bent tubular steel chair design, Marcel Breuer created the Cesca Chair (1928). Named in tribute to his daughter Francesca, the simple design pairs the industrial age aesthetic of tubular steel with caning and wood. This chair is stamped with the KnollStudio logo and Breuer’s signature. Cesca chairs are manufactured by Knoll® according to the original and exacting specifications of the designer. Made in USA. A 1999 revision to the classic Panton chair--and the last version authorized by Verner Panton. The plastic in this model has been completely re-engineered and molded out of a single piece of dyed polypropylene. It also has a matte surface (the 1959/60 original version has a glossy finish). Finally...a Panton chair that realized one of its creator's primary objectives: a plastic chair as an affordable industrial product. Founded in Switzerland in 1950, Vitra produces intelligent and inspiring furniture and accessories for the home, office and other public spaces. Ever mindful of the importance of sustainability in design, Vitra creates furnishings with high quality and versatile style that ensures functional and aesthetic enjoyment for the long term. Charles and Ray Eames believed that "design is a method of action," and they continually updated their work as new materials became available. Their Molded Plastic chairs were originally designed in metal and entered as a prototype in MoMA’s 1948 International Competition for Low-Cost Furniture Design. They then changed the material to fiberglass in 1950, and today the chairs are made of recyclable polypropylene. Charles was dissatisfied with the fiberglass, and it wasn’t until after his death that the matte finish he desired was achieved, thanks to advances in materials. "The chair that Charles and Ray were designing," explains grandson Eames Demetrios, "is the chair that’s made tomorrow." The deep seat pocket and waterfall seat edge keep you comfortable by reducing pressure on the backs of thighs. This is an authentic chair by Herman Miller, Inc. Eames is a licensed trademark of Herman Miller. Contract quality. Made in U.S.A. After opening his own workshop in 1923, Jean Prouvé began producing furniture of his own and collaborating with some of the best-known French designers of the day, including Le Corbusier and Charlotte Perriand. Prouvé always strove for the most efficient designs, evident in classics such as his Standard Chair (1934). This chair, which comprises a utilitarian yet visually arresting combination of steel and wood, reflects the designer’s engineering pedigree and intense focus on materials, connections and production. Voluminous straight back legs bear the brunt of the occupant’s weight, and tubular front legs provide just enough support for the rest. Finely shaped wood seating surfaces conform nicely to the body. Inspiration can come from anywhere, and in the case of this chair by Hee Welling, it was a refrigerator. More specifically, the wire shelves inside the refrigerator caught the eye of this industrial designer. At the time, Welling was fiddling with an idea for creating a chair that uses only one material. Altering this criteria a small bit, he added a powder-coated finish and created his Hee Collection (2004) for Danish design collective HAY. The durable powder-coated finish makes the Hee Chair suitable for indoor and outdoor use by protecting the solid steel underneath. Hee chairs and stools have been used in contract settings worldwide, including the Hoxton Hotel in England, Helsingør Hospital in Denmark and Infineon Offices in Germany. Imagine if that original refrigerator had glass shelves. This chair stacks for storage. Made in China. In his groundbreaking collection of 1957, Eero Saarinen transformed executive seating into a fluid, sculptural form. Comfortable and beautiful, the Saarinen Executive Chair with Wooden Legs is a silhouette that is a cornerstone of modern design. Saarinen's classical training in sculpture and architecture is evident in this visually striking open back chair. The Saarinen Executive Chair with Wooden Legs features a molded reinforced polyurethane shell and contoured plywood seat form. The urethane foam cushion is upholstered with matching full surround welt detail. Supported by wood legs available in several stained finishes. 
Branch Cafe Chair
Sossego Tereza Chair
Fritz Hansen Ant Chair
Case Profile Chair
HAY Élémentaire Chair
Ton Valencia Chair
Knoll Cesca Chair
Vitra Panton Chair
Eames Molded Plastic Side Chair With 4-Leg Base
Vitra Prouvé Standard Chair
HAY Hee Dining Chair
Saarinen Executive Chair With Wood Legs
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