The Pelican chair (1940) and Poet sofa (1941) are among Juhl’s most recognizable pieces, But especially with the Pelican chair, no more than a dozen were made originally, and the original company couldn’t tell from Juhl’s sketches just how the winged lounge chair constructed. “Mr. Noritsugu Osa—a professor at Hokkaido Tokai University, who is now 60 years old—befriended Finn Juhl and probably has the biggest private collection of his work in the world, including a Pelican chair,” Pontopiddan says. “When we decided to produce that chair, we could not do it from the sketches. We either had to go out and try to buy one at auction—if one came up—or we could find someone who had one. Oda-san was very willing to offer help and advice. We had his chair crated and air-shipped back from Japan so that we could open it up and see how it was constructed.”
Once the company had capitalized on this astonishing generosity ( architonic.com places the value of an original near $50,000 and recognizes only four to have been made), it opted to do things differently. “The shell for the Pelican chair is made in a form today,” Pontoppidan says. “It just makes more sense to have a single piece then to construct it from wood—you can’t get the same strength. We are using a very hard foam material with steel reinforcement inside.” However, One Collection continues to hand stitch the upholstery. “It’s a very time-consuming process,” Pontoppidan admits. “You could do it differently, but they have always been hand stitched and you never see joins like that. It has tactility.”
Ultimately, Delson Classic Furniture Company wants to make all these wonderful design chairs for a simple reason:"we want to have these marvellous designs available to a broader market." These lesser known but equally desirable models(like Chieftan chair,poet sofa,pelican chair,eye shaped coffee tables) shoud be within reach of those who buy other mnodern classic furniture.
|