Fritz Hansen

What Is the Difference Between Front and Full Upholstery?

It is a question of how much of the shell you still see. The plain chair leaves the moulded veneer bare, grain and all, which is the version most people picture when they picture a Series 7. Front upholstery pads only the face you sit against, so the wood still reads from behind and the chair gains softness without losing its outline. Full upholstery wraps the shell entirely and turns it into a quiet block of colour or leather. The weights tell the same story plainly: a Series 7 is 8.8 lbs bare and 9.9 lbs fully upholstered.

Should I Choose Three Legs or Four?

The Ant was drawn on three legs, and purists still want it that way. Four came later and is the steadier choice for a dining table in daily use. They are not quite the same chair: the three-legged version measures 20.4" wide by 20" deep by 30.3" high with a 17.3" seat and weighs 6.8 lbs, while the four-legged one is 18.9" deep, 31.9" high with an 18.1" seat at 7.5 lbs. The three-legged Ant sits slightly lower and reads lighter in a room.

What Is the Shell Actually Made Of?

Thin layers of veneer, pressure-moulded over a form into a single curved shell with no joints to work loose. That technique is the whole reason these chairs exist: it let Arne Jacobsen bend a seat and a back out of one continuous piece in the 1950s, and it is why a chair this slender carries an adult without flexing. The lacquered and coloured finishes sit on that same shell.

What Is the PK Line?

The work of Poul Kjaerholm, and a different temperament entirely from the moulded shells. Kjaerholm built in steel rather than wood, treating it as a natural material to be matched against leather, cane and marble, and the results are spare to the point of severity. A PK piece is usually the quietest object in a room and the one people keep looking at.