BKF Chair
The first modern butterfly chair was designed in 1938 in Buenos Aires by three architects, Bonet, Kurchan and Ferrari (BKF). They had worked under Le Corbusier, one of the most important architects of the 20th century, but the BKF chair doesn't show much of that influence. They were inspired by a chair called the Tripolina Chair. The Tripolina Chair was a folding chair made of wood and Italian leather. The Tripolina Chair was designed and patented in 1877. It was invented by the British inventor Joseph Fenby and is also known as the Fenby Chair.
Three architects (BKF) created a total of three armchairs. Nothing more, nothing less. About 10 years later, a company bought the manufacturing rights for the armchairs. The company tried to defend its right to be the sole producer of the BKF chair. However, this right was not defended, as the courts determined that the "original work" itself was in fact a copy of the "Tripolina chair". The BKF chairs were mass-produced and quickly became famous. They were mass-produced and quickly became famous. Many companies began to make "copies" of the BKF chair. During the golden age of the BKF chair in the 1950s, about 5 million chairs were produced. The American company Knoll was one of the manufacturers at that time.
Since then, many companies have started producing butterfly chairs, and since then, they have adorned homes around the world. But there is one final problem that has always plagued users: the chair was quite uncomfortable to sit on. One reason for this could be that in 1938, when this chair was first designed, people were shorter. As people grew taller in the 20th century, the butterfly chair had to adapt as well. Luckily, this was changed by a Swedish entrepreneur named Lars Kirstadius. Like millions of others, he found the butterfly chair uncomfortable to sit on. Lars Kirstadius improved on it by making it 30% larger than the original design. He also made some adjustments to the radius of the cover to get a more comfortable seating position. He named his version the Mariposa Chair, which means "butterfly" in Spanish. The name of his company was Cuero Design, which means "leather design" in Spanish.
Cuero is located in the deep forest near Växjö, Sweden. Founded in 1987 as a manufacturer of leather clothing such as lambskin for the Nordic market, Cuero expanded into the interior industry with the production of the BKF chair.
Cuero Design's Swedish-made Mariposa chair quickly became a popular choice among celebrities and wealthy Scandinavian families. It wasn't long before high-end furniture stores around the world were selling the model alongside other design classics such as the Eames Lounge Chair and Arne Jacobsen's classic Egg Chair. Today, chairs made by Cuero Design adorn thousands of homes and are also found in famous hotels such as the Icehotel in northern Sweden and the Arctic Treehouse Hotel in Finland.
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