Gallery Stool by Hans Sandgren Jakobsen - Fredericia

The Gallery stool represents a major design breakthrough when it was launched in 1998, pushing the properties of molded plywood to the maximum limit to form a sculptural seating object. Designed by Hans Sandgren Jakobsen for Fredericia Furniture, this iconic stool has received several international design awards, most notably the 2000 Good Design Award in Japan, The 1998 Forsnäs Prize in Sweden, and the 1998 Architectural Review Award for Product Excellence at Spectrum, UK.

The stool is made from a single mould of plywood and fixed with metal joints, demonstrating the designer’s mastery of material engineering and minimalist aesthetics. The design features ten layers of plywood cut out in a 53 cm x 125 cm rectangle and stressed to the limit of the material’s capacity, with no front or back orientation – you can even sit astride it.

Hans Sandgren Jakobsen’s philosophy of “Good furniture will draw you in – appealing first to the eye, then to the soul” is perfectly embodied in the Gallery stool’s striking simplicity. The Gallery stool design is already considered a modern Danish design classic, even honored by making it a miniature. Available in black stained ash or lacquered walnut finishes, this versatile piece functions equally well as functional seating or as a sculptural art object.

“Gallery” – A Working Process.

It is not without precedent to get inspiration from Africa. Last century it was done by a number of European painters – most known is probably Picasso.

Africa was also a source of inspiration for the stool “Gallery”. The idea for the stool was brought about by a visit to the art museum Trapholt in the summer 1995. The museum showed an exhibition of African chairs from the Vitra Design Museum in Germany – the title of the exhibition was: “The first general survey of the vanishing culture of sub-Saharan Africans.” Some stools from Zaire and the Ivory Coast especially fascinated me. The stools were beautifully carved in solid tree, covered with leather, and fitted with brass sprigs. However, it was the shape of the stools, which caught my attention. I saw great quality and potential in their shape. This shape in moulded veneer – it would be perfect.

I went home to work on this idea. I made a model in cardboard. A year later, Kunstforeningen in Copenhagen – sponsored by the Danish National Bank´s Jubilee Foundation of 1968 – ordered a stool for their exhibition rooms. They accepted the stool based on the cardboard model – and it was named “Gallery”.

However, no manufacturer wanted to support the project – they found the idea technically insoluble and hopelessly unprofitable – they believed it to be impossible. Therefore, I had to produce the first model of “Gallery” myself. I took ten pieces of 0.6-millimetre thick veneer – 530 X 1250 – smeared it with glue between the layers, and pushed them into a primitive form. Then the form was rigged with a lot of clamps, thread bars, iron beams and jacks. The seat was pressed down – and then the sides. The hardest challenge was whether or not the double curvature passage between the two flat pieces could stand the pressure. Finally, it did! And then a bold manufacturer occured: Fredericia Furniture. All this happened before the first model of “Gallery” was exhibited at SE´98 in Copenhagen.

Taburetten "Gallery", 1998. Design: Hans Sandgren Jakobsen. The result of this working process is a stool – a quiet stool. It is not supposed to be the first thing you notice when entering a room, as for instance at Kunstforeningen. But it meets its demands – it is nice to sit on, and it can easily be seated. However, even though it is quiet it also persists self-awareness. It rests in its own quietness, because it has reached its unique form.

“Gallery” is a highly industrialised product, which is indebted to African craft tradition. What seemed to be a hopeless project became a success due to a great source of inspiration, stubbornness, hand power, sponsorship, and a bold manufacturer.

Photo: Taburetten “Gallery”, 1998.
Design: Hans Sandgren Jakobsen.