First Look: ‘It’s a chair that smiles at you,’ says designer Bruce Hannah

On cue, when many of us could do with a bit of optimism, Knoll today announces the reissue of its office chair by Morrison Hannah from 1973. Though we shudder a little when people anthropomorphise their furniture, there’s no denying this chair has a sunny disposition and, quite frankly, we’ll take any cheer on offer right now. The office smiler was originally launched with easy in mind under the seductive tagline: ‘Easy to manufacture, easy to reupholster, easy to live with and easy to love.’ Fifty years later, the statement still stands.

Designers Andrew Morrison and Bruce Hannah were quietly radical for pioneering human wants and needs, together with empathy in their design practice, at a time when futurism and the new possibilities of manufacture routinely resulted in bizarre design experiments that haven’t survived the test of time. ‘I’ve been on a personal crusade to create as much softness in the world as I can,’ says Hannah, which makes us want to climb through our computer screens and hug the man.

The chair in question has been resurrected with even more comfort achieved by softer foam in its pillow back and seat, a greater range of tilt to suit the sitter’s preferred trajectory of lounge, and a rocking mechanism to cradle us gently as we howl into the abyss of our uncertain futures. Impressively customisable, the renewed edition exists in four different models with six frame options and a slew of textile or leather upholsteries on offer. In celebration of the chair’s return, we sat down with Hannah to hear more.

Bruce Hannah on the reissued Morrison Hannah office chair for Knoll

Wallpaper*: If you cast your mind back to the original brief, what did you set out to accomplish with the chair?

Bruce Hannah: Andy Morrison and I were interested in designing a reasonably priced office chair, that was easy to make, easy to assemble, easy on the eyes, easy to sit in, easy to repair, easy to recycle, essentially the easy chair.

W*: We are witnessing a resurgence or reappraisal of design from the 1970s – why do you think this might be?

BH: I’m not sure why but if the 1960s were filled with optimism, maybe the 1970s were filled with trying to make some of that optimism a reality. I like to think Andy and I were always optimistically trying to make things just five percent better.

W*: How does the Morrison Hannah chair suit contemporary life, habits and habitats?

BH: The office chair design was conceived as a simple answer to a complicated question; how do you support a person at work in a beautiful way? That’s a complex question with no straightforward answer. There are many solutions to that question. Andy and I talked about Simply-Complex solutions to people’s needs and wants, since combining needs and wants leads invariably to complex answers that should appear to be simple. The office chair is happy to exist in both contemporary offices and homes and today those environments have interchangeable.

W*: Have you made any updates or adjustments?

BH: The simple answer is yes, of course. Retooling a design is a designer’s dream especially when technology has made so many aspects of the design process so much better. To change a curve 50 years ago, before CAD, you just sand-papered the actual model a little here and added a little there, by hand, relying on your touch and sight to make the adjustment. Now a designer clicks the mouse a few times and, voilà, the new curve appears magically and the original still exists as a reference. How amazing is that? So yes, we did make adjustments. The Knoll design team brought the chair into the 21st century. The seat angle and back angle have been adjusted, as have a few of the details in the curves, but essentially the chair is the same chair we designed 50 years ago.

W*: Please complete the line: ‘For me good design means...’

BH: 'For me good design means good business.' That’s what Florence Knoll postulated more than 50 years ago, and I agree with that. I also think good design is respecting and having empathy for everyone who comes in contact with your design, from the people who make the materials to the people who manufacture it; to the people who use it, to the people who repair it, to those who pass it on, to those who hopefully recycle it

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