Armchair Prototype, Cross Check
- Designed by
- Frank O. Gehry (born 1929)
- Material
- Maple-faced plywood, metal
- Produced by
- Gehry Studio, Los Angeles, California, for Knoll International, New York, New York
- Dimensions
- 94.5 x 88.5 x 65 cm
The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Liliane and David M. Stewart Collection, gift of the designer and The Knoll Group, D92.115.1
Architects have long been interested in designing furniture, and Canadian-born Frank Gehry was no exception. Known for his inventiveness with unlikely materials and methods, Gehry was inspired by baskets made from strips of woven wood for a line of chairs and tables for the Knoll group. His new design resulted in strong, lightweight furniture where, instead of the thick supporting structure and thin webbing of earlier bentwood furniture “the support structure and the seat are formed of the same lightweight slender wood strips, which serve both functions. The material forms a single and continuous idea.” Gehry named each design for terms used in ice hockey—his favorite sport. The chairs were introduced in 1990 and are still in production.
The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, photo: Giles Rivest.