Risom Side Chair

January 5, 2025

Risom Side Chair

I’ve had my eye on the Risom side chair for a couple of years, and was lucky enough to score one for 1/3rd the normal price at the Design Within Reach outlet in Brooklyn. It was especially serendipitous because it was the day after we got back from Japan, and the post-Japan-depression-hangover was in full swing.

I normally don’t like midcentury modern furniture, but the Risom chair is an exception.

I learned (while writing this) that Jens Risom was a Danish designer who moved to the US and designed the chair in 1941. Because of wartime constraints, “His early furniture, like the webbed chairs, were constructed from non-wartime critical softwoods and surplus military cloth that was bleached and dyed.” (Source)

In 1943, he was drafted into WW2. When he came back, he teamed up with Hans Knoll to create Hans Knoll Furniture (crazy how the person actually producing the work never gets their name in the title of the business lol). Risom designed most of the furniture collection, of which several pieces are still produced today. (Source)

I like the simplicity and ingenuity of the design. It’s honest to the materials, and utilizes the constraints in a beautiful way. I don’t like the lounge chair version as much as the side chair, because I think the lounge chair is a bit ostentatious and dishonest with the shape of the wood. The side chair is perfect.