Arne Jacobsen (1902-1971) designed these tall-backed chairs for St. Catherines College in Oxford in 1962. The chair was designed for the high table in the dining hall, where the tall back helped emphasize the dons’ authority over the students who originally sat on benches without backs. Jacobsen designed the building as well and the wooden surface of the chair corresponds to the natural material he used in the dining hall. The chair is said to be one of Jacobsen’s most powerful combining the modern look of a conference chair with something archaic and statuary. It is characterized by a strict and stringently minimized form; consisting of only five parts and one material.
Jacobsen is represented at Designmuseum Denmark; Trapholt Museum of Modern Art, Kolding; MOMA, New York; Victoria and Albert Museum, London and Nationalmuseum, Stockholm.