First mass-produced plastic chair
- Who
- Bofinger Chair
- What
- First
- Where
- Not Applicable
- When
- 1966
The Bofinger Chair (BA 1171), designed by architect and designer Helmut Bätzner (Germany) in 1964, was the first mass-produced plastic chair. Going into mass production in 1966, and produced in association with the Bofinger Company of Germany, the now ubiquitous stacking plastic chair was a one-piece item made of through-dyed fibreglass-reinforced polyester and created in a single press over a steel mould.
The chair was designed with the aim of getting the maximum stability from the minimum possible amount of materials in a rapid and relatively simple process. When mass production started it took just five minutes to produce a chair that possessed the required elasticity, stackability and strength.