Hasta La Ideas

Here’s a chair design with a curious detail. And these forms may mean nothing to Americans, but ought draw nostalgia for Europeans: The Col Chair, by Barcelona-based industrial designer Francesc Rifé, is a reinterpretation of the school chairs he grew up with in the ’80s and ’90s.

Made from steel tubes and bent plywood, the seats and backs have a simple elegance to them. But the abrupt, rather ugly termination of the back support where it meets the legs, which I have to think was purposefully underconsidered, does recall institutional furniture where ease of mass manufacture trumps aesthetics.

I wouldn’t have thought you could get away with that, but the chair is in production by Spain-based design furniture brand Capdell.