Back to the originals
Flügger has, in collaboration with the furniture manufacturer Getama A/S, found the formulas for the six original colours that Hans J. Wegner used when he designed his famous Keyhole rocking chair. The classic chair turns 50 this year, and is being relaunched in its original colours.
For the past 50 years, the classic rocking chair has been produced by the company Getama, which has historically used the woods beech and oak. Very few people know, however, that Wegner created the chair in six distinctive retro colours from his original colour palette when the chair first saw the light of day in 1967. However, it is very hard to come by chairs in any of these colours today.
This year, Wegner’s Keyhole chair celebrates its 50th anniversary, and Getama therefore decided to recreate the colours from Wegner’s original colour palette, and which are actually older than the chair itself. Getama and Wegner’s drawing office – Hans J Wegner Tegnestue, which is currently managed by Wegner’s heirs, therefore located some faded colour samples in the form of small wood disks, which were effectively the only documentation for the original colours from Wegner’s colour card. Work then started at the Flügger laboratory to recreate the colours which had been used to produce the Keyhole chair, a project which was headed by Anita Florisson, one of Flügger’s colour technicians:
“We are often asked to recreate specific colours from a particular colour scale. This time, the challenge was that the colour samples we received were in the form of the wood samples. In order to recreate the specific shades, we therefore had to transfer the patina from the old wood disks into the new colours. After numerous attempts, we succeeded in creating the right shades so that they met with everyone’s approval, which of course made us feel very proud.”
According to the heirs’ wishes, Flügger also created a new black shade, which goes well with the other historic Wegner colours. All six colours have now been deemed to match the originals by the heirs, and from September they can be seen on the relaunched model. In addition to the Keyhole chair, Wegner’s U-chair from 1970 is being relaunched – also in the original Wegner colours.
Jesper Temp, CEO at Getama A/S, describes the cooperation with Flügger:
“At Getama, we have built up an excellent relationship with Flügger after cooperating on several projects in the past; for example, Flügger helped us with the colours for our showroom some years back. It therefore made perfect sense to team up again on the relaunch of the famous Wegner furniture – and we are, as always, very pleased with the result.”
The six Wegner colours can be purchased in Flügger from 15 September 2017.
