Dezeen’s A-Zdvent calendar: Domus Chair by Ilmari Tapiovaara

«It was one of his most famous, most produced and most reproduced chairs,» said Saloniemi. Domus Lounge ChairIt was particularly exported to the USA, earning the designer an international reputation as well as fame in his home country. «He did Ikea before Ikea, good quality pieces at an affordable price – the same kind of packaging and mass production ideas as Ikea has done.»
The designer   created the Domus Chair in 1946 as a multipurpose seat for the Domus Academica student housing complex in Helsinki. Being   stackable, the chair could also be efficiently packed into shipping crates and transported worldwide. An advocate of social design, Ilmari Tapiovaara used local materials and techniques to allow his designs to be manufactured relatively inexpensively so they could be used by all. Finnish people know his chairs and only his chairs, everyone sat on his chairs at school,» Helsinki Design Museum chief curator Suvi Saloniemi told Dezeen during a tour of the exhibition, where a selection of its numerous iterations – including a larger armchair – were displayed in a dedicated room. Number four in   our festive A-Z of iconic chairs is the birch plywood Domus Chair by Finnish Modernist designer Ilmari Tapiovaara. «Tapiovaara wanted good design for everyone,» said Jukka Savolainen, director of Helsinki Design Museum – which hosted an exhibition of Tapiovaara’s work earlier this year.