designed by Peter Ghyczy *, manufactured at the Lemförde Design Centre, Germany, 1968–71, moulded polyurethane parts, hand-painted, the seats upholstered and covered with textile fabric, height 75 cm, width 63 cm, depth 82 cm, height of seat 38 cm. (DR) From an experimental preliminary production. The seats can be folded in so that the chairs need little space when not in use. Provenance: Coll. Michael Rossol, Germany, until 2010. Lit.: B. Polster, Peter Ghyczy. Der Evolutionär, Cologne 2010, pp. 44–69, particularly pp. 66/67, ill.

Between 1968 and 1971, the architect and designer Peter Ghyczy, who came from Hungary, experimented with plastic furniture together with a small team of assistants. The Lemförde Design Centre (Northern Germany) had been founded by Dr. Gottfried Reuter, an industrialist and chemist, in order to develop innovative product designs for the new material of polyurethane, for which Reuter received several patents. The building itself, also designed by Ghyczy, was completely made polyurethane as well. The goal was to work as “a think tank for industry”, a concept that had first been developed at the Bauhaus and was later continued in Ulm. The centre was closed after a relatively short period, since the costs involved in this complicated and sophisticated production process were excessive, so that the institution finally had to be sold to the chemical company BASF. Michael Rossol, who owned the objects offered for sale here, was one of Ghyczy’s closest collaborators in Lemförde.