At first glance, the Dream Chair looks like a concept, with impossible curves and a seemingly precarious structure that appears as if it could only exist in a 3D rendering. Yet the Danish manufacturer Carl Hansen & Søn took Tadao Ando’s dream and made it reality with a chair that stands as a feat of both manufacturing and fantasy.
The project originated with Carl Hansen & Søn (CHS). Looking to create a tribute to the great Danish furniture designer Hans Wegner, CHS approached Ando to develop a design for a lounge chair. “I have been an admirer of Wegner’s craftsmanship for many years,” the Pritzker Prize–winning Japanese architect said in a press release. “This was new to me, as in the past I have been used to only selecting furniture for the buildings I have created over the years.”
During their first meeting in Japan, CHS informed Ando of some of the restrictions of working with wood and veneer, which he wrote in his memo book, and then waited for him to bring back his first concepts. “When we saw the first sketches and drawings, we knew that to make this chair would be one of the biggest challenges that we have ever faced in Carl Hansen & Søn,” says Melissa Shelton, CHS’s director of marketing and communication. “Not only was the chair large, but the bending of the veneer was designed beyond what had ever been made.”
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