Knoll Hardoy Butterfly Chairs

May 16, 2011 by Bob Borson 68 Comments

Today I am going to talk about the Knoll Hardoy Butterfly (BFK) chairs. I have two original butterfly chairs that came into my possession because someone else decided to throw them away. (what?!?) That’s right – scoreboard.

via the MoMA site:

The B.K.F. Chair—also known as the Hardoy Chair, Butterfly Chair, Safari Chair, Sling Chair, or Wing Chair—was designed in Buenos Aires and its name credits its three designers. The first two B.F.K. chairs to come to the United States went to Fallingwater, Edgar Kaufmann Jr.’s home in Pennsylvania (designed by family friend Frank Lloyd Wright), and to MoMA. Edgar Kaufmann accurately predicted that the lightweight and inexpensive lounge chair would become hugely popular in the U.S., particularly on the West Coast.

Artek-Pascoe produced the chair from 1941 to 1948, sending royalties back to Argentina. Knoll Associates acquired U.S. production rights in the late 1940s and unsuccessfully pursued legal action against unauthorized copies, which continue to be produced to this day.

via Knoll Museum:

Grupo Austral introduced their new chair of leather and enameled steel at the 3rd Salon de Artistas Decoradoresinterior design exhibition in Buenos Aires in 1940. On the occasion of the Salon, the group sent a note to the organizers indicating that the chair was the sole work of Ferrari-Hardoy. Hence it is most commonly referenced in design circles as the Hardoy chair, but it is also known as the Butterfly chair and the BKR chair (the initials of the designers; Antonio Bonet, Jorge Ferrari-Hardoy and Juan Kurchan).

The chair received two design prizes at its introduction. In 1941 the chair was awarded the Acquisition Prize by the Museum of Modern Art, after Edgar Kaufmann Jr. bought the chair to MoMA’s attention.

Knoll acquired US production rights of the Hardoy chair in 1947, brining international notice and commercial success to the design. A rash of inferior copies prompted legal action by Knoll in 1950. After losing their claim of copyright infringement, Knoll dropped the chair from its line in 1951. More than five million copies of the chair were estimated to have been produced by numerous manufacturers during the 1950s alone.

So they way I came into possession of my chairs …. I was driving home from work and was about 9 houses away from turning into my driveway when I saw them. Once I got over the shame of dumpster diving in my neighbors trash (in roughly 4.2 seconds) I threw those babies into the back of my car and skeedattled!

That was 4 years ago and they have been sitting in the same dilapidated state ever since – but not anymore, this weekend I decided to get them fixed up for proper use.

Given the amount of rust that was on these frames, my arms would have fallen off trying to scrape it off. Luckily, I am clever enough to know that I can just go buy a wire brush bit for my drill, which is exactly what I did. It still took almost an hour of drill brushing per chair to remove all the rust and crud. Once I was done with the wire brush, I went to work using #0000 steel wool to finish up the job – those frames looked fresh off the factory floor when I was finished.

However, I was still not done – they needed to be painted or the rust would have eventually come back. I used one can of black enamel spray paint – about 4 coats worth per chair. Those babies were so perfectly black that if they went to night school, the teacher would have marked them absent!

The only thing remaining to deal with are the covers. The ones I have suck and look dingy – they are white canvas and despite my hardcore home brew of OxyClean, Clorox bleach, two wash cycles, etc. they are still looking all of their age … which simply won’t do. No, I have to get new slings for these babies and I know just the place – Circa50. The fine folks at Circa50 have been manufacturing butterfly chairs and covers since 1997 and as far as I am concerned, they are the only place to go get what I need. You can choose from 12 different canvas colors but what really separates them from other manufacturers is the indoor/outdoor vinyl weave cover they make. (Of course, I will be ordering my two covers in black).

I am really, really happy I got this project (other than ordering my covers) done this weekend. My butterfly chairs have been sitting neglected in the carport for the last several years. Once they are finished, they will be able to take their place of prominence in the back yard.