Eero Aarnio – Bubble Chair (1968)

Imagine a go on a swing not in your balcony or in your backyard but in your living room! Go further and imagine the swing as a comfortable soap bubble-like a cocoon, not of silk but made of a transparent acrylic on a steel frame, letting the light getting inside. It hangs from the ceiling in solid stainless steel.  You may fly in your living room in a floating bubble swing. You can even have it with removable upholstered cushions in silver leather (the original version) or in other colours and in fabric upon your request. Well, the Finnish designer Eero Aarnio (Helsiniki, 1932) though about such piece and designed the so-called Bubble Chair in 1968. He inspired himself in the Ball Chair designed by him in 1963. Both chairs are symbols for the aesthetics of 1960s and are both famous and iconic. The Bubble Chair has been featured in movies sets (as Across the Universe directed by Julie Taymor in 2007) in all type of advertising (it was cover of Playboy in December 2000), fashion events (from New York to Berlin), airport lounges (as in the Aspire Lounge at Helsinki Vantaa Airport), museum collections. It can also be found in diverse spaces of so many homes where people are lucky enough to enjoy such a swing.

Author: Fátima Pombo

Photo: Eero Aarnio seated in his Bubble Chair http://www.modernidademoveis.com/blog/2010/11/19/bubble-chair-2/