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Ant Chair Wood
(3 or 4 legs)
 

design Arne Jacobsen, 1952

Initially, Arne Jacobsen designed the Ant Chair for the canteen at Novo Nordisk, an international Danish healthcare company. The inspiration for the Ant Chair came from Hvidt & Mølggard’s AX-series. 

Today, the Ant is one of the most prominent icons in the collection. "In my opinion, the Ant is the most influential example of furniture design in the 20th century" says Kjeld Vindum, who add "It is an immensely important chair because it takes into account the new way of life and the new possibilities, and at the same time it has an elegant and up-to-date expression. It is one of Arne Jacobsen's masterpiece.

Despite its minimalist form and svelte shape, the Ant is an extremely comfortable chair. The shell is in pressure molded veneer. The inner shell is always made of beech, but the Ant Chair Wood Version comes in many different outer veneers: maple, beech, fir, ash, elm, oak, walnut and cherry.
The Ant Chair is also available in coloured or lacquered ash

Materials form-pressed plywood and tubular steel frame
Seat height 4 legs 43 or 46 cm Seat height 3 legs 44 or 46 cm

Width 48 cm Depth 48 cm

Warranty Fritz Hansen offer up to 20 years limited warranty if the products are registered online at fritzhansen.com/my-fh

Ant Wood 3 Legs

Ant Wood 4 Legs

9 shell versions

Ash

Beech

Elm

Maple

Oak

Dark Stained Oak

Walnut

Cherry

Oregon Pine

7 legs colors

Oak

Dark stained oak / light edge

Dark stained oak / dark edge

Elm

Walnut

Beech

Maple

Oregon pine

Beech

Cherry

Arne Jacobsen

Arne Jacobsen was born on February 11, 1902 in Copenhagen. His father, Johan Jacobsen, is a wholesale trader in safety pins and snap fasteners. His mother, Pouline Jacobsen, a bank clerk, paints floral motifs in her spare time. The family lived in a typical Victorian style home. As a contrast to his parents’ overly decorated taste, Arne paints his room in white.

 

Background & school relations

He met the Lassen brothers at Nærum Boarding School: later, Flemming Lassen was to become his partner in a series of architectural projects. Arne Jacobsen is a restless pupil, always up to pranks, with a self-deprecating humour. Already as a child, he showed an extraordinary talent for drawing and depicting nature through scrupulous studies. He wants to be painter, but his father felt that architect was a more sensible choice.

 

The Pleasant and the necessary trips abroad

Jacobsen’s travelling begin already in his twenties, when he went to sea to New York. Then followed an apprenticeship as a bricklayer in Germany and a series of study and drawing excursions to Italy. Jacobsen produced some of his finest watercolours during this period, capturing atmospheres and shapes accurately and carefully. From the beginning of his career, Jacobsen turned his gaze abroad, without abandoning Danish traditions.

 

Arne Jacobsen behind the design

Jacobsen production reflects his personality: an insistent, perfectionist modernist, to whom no detail was trivial, although the main picture was basically black/white and unambiguous. On the other hand, the nature-loving botanist and jovial family man: like him, his work is precise and warm, Danish and universal, modern and timeless.