Designer · Czechoslovakia
Miroslav Navratil
Miroslav Navrátil – Czechoslovak furniture designer from Boršice, creator of the 1959 glass-fibre laminate Vertex chair, prototype for Tatra T3 tram seats.
Set of 4 chairs, designed by Miroslav Navratil for Vertex, 1960s
About the designer
- Country
- Czechoslovakia
- Manufacturers
- Vertex
Miroslav Navrátil was from Boršice. He learned cabinetmaking in his father’s workshop in Uherské Hradiště, then at the state school of wood processing in Valašské Meziříčí and at the industrial school in Brno. After the war, he worked, among other places, at a furniture factory in Moravský Písek, and later as a designer at the Vývoj nábytkářského průmyslu centre.
In 1959, in collaboration with the Vertex company from Litomyšl, he designed a chair with a shell seat made of glass-fibre laminate on a metal or wooden base, named Vertex after its manufacturer. Its construction became the basis for the seats of Tatra T3 trams. Several examples are held in the collections of the Moravian Gallery in Brno.
Together with the architect Zdeněk Plesník, he designed the interiors of the villas of Miroslav Zikmund and Jiří Hanzelka; 1950s furniture has been preserved in Zikmund’s villa in Zlín. His television armchair was noted by the jury of the 12th Triennale in Milan in 1960.
