Vitra Landi Chair

The Landi Chair from Vitra was originally designed by Hans Coray in 1938 as the official seating for outdoor areas of the 1939 Swiss National Exhibition. The student of Romance languages and self-taught designer sought to develop a chair that would be weatherproof, lightweight and comfortable. Landi continues to set benchmarks in design through its efficient use of materials and functional elegance. As a modern classic, the Landi Chair has secured its well-deserved place in the history of design as well as in numerous international design museum collections. It featured on a Swiss postage stamp in 2004 when it was included as one of the country's most significant design achievements. along with thepocket watchm Swiss Army Knife and funicular railway. 

Made from lightweight aluminium, the seat shell of Landi not only follows the contours of the sitter's body but is also shaped in a transverse direction. Coray achieved a three-dimensionally moulded seat shell whose comfort is additionally enhanced by the flexibility of the aluminium sheeting. The shell is perforated with 91 punched holes, which give the chair its characteristic appearance and further reduce its weight.

For the base, Hans Coray used the material aluminium in a different form: as extruded profiles whose C-shaped cross section makes them lightweight yet stable. The bent aluminium profiles each form a pair of legs with an armrest and connected by two thin struts  simultaneously serve as the base. The perforated seat shell floats on top, connected at just four points. The Landi Chair thus introduced a structural principle that was systematised and perfected a few years later by Charles and Ray Eames and has since become firmly established in the canon of furniture design: a seat shell resting on a self-supporting frame.

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