CH24 Wishbone Chair

Hans J. Wegner is considered by experts to be “the creator of chairs par excellence” of Scandinavian design, and the CH24 chair he designed for Carl Hansen & Søn in 1949 is undoubtedly his masterpiece. Recognized worldwide as one of the great icons of the Danish style, its roots, however, come from much further away, even from the Far East: Wegner’s formal research starts from the study of the proportions of the ancient Chinese chairs.

The CH24 chair is an evolution of the Round Chair model, designed by Wegner in the same year for PP Møbler, compared to which it is lighter and more essential. It takes up its characteristic rounded back, but separates the armrests from the base, so that the chair can be more easily under a table.

The back is reinforced by a two-part crosspiece that strongly characterizes its shape: in fact, when it was first put on the market, in 1950, it was called the Y Chair. Even the name with which it is known today, Wishbone Chair (“Wishbone” means “forceps”) refers to that emblematic stylistic element.

The base is reinforced by two rounded crosspieces, on the front and back, and two rectangular crosspieces on the sides. The seat is in paper cord, in natural or black painted finish, and it is made by a craftsman who manually weaves over 120 meters of paper cord to ensure excellent stability and comfort.

The craftsmanship is in fact another among the key features of this seat: the production of each model requires over 100 different steps, most of which are done by hand. Given its great success, Carl Hansen & Søn offers the CH24 chair in over 50 variants, with the structure made of different woods such as oak, walnut, beech and ash, painted in a large variety of colours, while always maintaining the strong impression of naturalness.