Vintage Swivel Chairs

In the 1950s designers began to treat the chair as a sculpture standing on a single base. Eero Saarinen designed the Tulip chair in 1955–1956 because, as he explained, he wanted to clear up the “slum of legs” beneath tables and chairs. Two years later Arne Jacobsen designed the Egg chair on a swivel foot for the SAS hotel in Copenhagen, and in 1963 Eero Aarnio created the Ball chair.

The swivel base soon moved from design icons into series production. In Germany, Scandinavia and the Eastern Bloc, factories made lounge and office armchairs that combined comfort with new materials: chrome, aluminium, plastic and soft upholstery. The Space Age chair – a rounded bucket seat, often in vivid colours – grew out of this movement.

The best-known PRL swivel chair in this collection is the B-7041 from the furniture works in Radomsko – offered singly and in pairs. Alongside it are chairs from Czechoslovakia, including a Space Age swivel wingback by UP Závody. The type and factory are given in the name of each product.

The collection includes the Tulip by Eero Saarinen for Knoll, with a cast aluminium base. From Germany come leather armchairs by Musterring and designs by Carl Straub; from Denmark, chairs by Georg Thams and models with a footstool by Unico.

In lounge chairs the seat height is usually fixed and the base turns on a bearing. Before buying, check that the chair swivels smoothly and that the base is stable – if the condition description does not cover this, ask us using the form on the product page. Dimensions, including seat height, are listed in the Dimensions tab.