Is This the ‘It’ Chair of 2023? Interior Designers Think So
Folksy wooden seats that hail from midcentury Europe and Scandinavia—which some design pros are calling brutalist in style—are showing up everywhere
Folksy wooden seats that hail from midcentury Europe and Scandinavia—which some design pros are calling brutalist in style—are showing up everywhere
AN UNFUSSY and downright brutish, midcentury vintage chair design has been muscling its way into even the most traditional of homes lately. Though no cozy La-Z-Boy, the seat is getting high marks for a wabi-sabi style that celebrates imperfections, thanks to exposed bolts, obvious joints, plain-Jane planks and unpolished wood. Some look like little more than two pieces of wood attached to legs, but keyhole details or sculpted backs can make them sweeter. Designers and dealers are calling the increasingly in-demand seats, which hail primarily from Scandinavia and Europe, brutalist. At online marketplace 1stDibs, searches for “brutalist chair” are up 115% year over year.
“These mid- to late-century chairs are raw, organic and almost harsh,” said Maureen Ursino, an interior designer in Colts Neck, N.J., who’s been buying them for clients because they add “a contemporary element in not too intense of a way.” Recently she placed a single Danish pinewood chair, likely a survivor of the 1970s, in the bathroom of a Larchmont, N.Y., home. “I used it as a decorative accent, as though it were a piece of art,” she said.
Heidi Caillier planted an oak example from Germany in a child’s bedroom in San Francisco. The Seattle-based designer welcomes “the sense of patina” the seats bring to a project: “Like maybe this chair has been in this family for years and keeps being passed down but also is not too precious.”
Though this simple wood chair is unquestionably trending, skeptics take issue with its equally buzzy “brutalist” label. Florence de Dampierre, author of “Chairs: A History” decries that description as sloppy. “Brutalism refers to an architectural style from the ’60s, of concrete,” she said. “The term for this kind of modern chair might more appropriately be handicraft.” Meanwhile, Los Angeles interior designer Martha Mulholland traces its influences to the rustic modern Scandinavian simplicity of Axel Einhar Hjorth and 18th-century Tyrolean furniture. (The Future Perfect, a retailer of collectible pieces, labels its examples above as such.) “The beauty of the design is in the simplicity of seeing the wood grain and joinery detail,” said Ms. Mulholland. She prefers to classify the seats as European Primitive Modern: “I would say the chair is more primitive than brutal, but it’s a matter of semantics.”
At Chairish, a reseller of vintage design where interest in the terms “brutalist” and “wabi-sabi” are building, Noel Fahden Briceño, vice president of merchandising, says European dealers first applied the term. Although the name is being used loosely, she said, “when dealers started titling these chairs ‘brutalist,’ I said, OK, I can see that.”
Whatever you want to call the seats, designers are embracing the little brutes because they are unexpected. “I like that they feel unrecognisable,” said Ms. Caillier. “So many chairs have become trendy and overused, but it’s hard to find the same one of these chairs more than once.”
The design is also proving quite versatile. “There is a boldness and sharp sculptural quality to them, and they can hold their own in any room because they are simple,” said Ms. Mulholland. “They can cover a lot of ground aesthetically.” She recently used a couple of primitive three-legged walnut chairs underneath the living room windows of a home in Los Angeles’s Lafayette Square. The historic Craftsman home boasts its original unpainted mahogany woodwork. “I was playing into that masculinity,” she said, “but I also liked the contrast of putting the chair up against a pink velvet drape.”
The chairs’ roughness tends to clash intriguingly with softer, more feminine elements like that. This visual dissonance has helped fuel their popularity. “You can use one chair as an accent piece, even if the rest of the room is refined,” said Ms. Fahden Briceño.
Ms. Ursino says these chairs are not known for their coziness and may need a little help—she upholstered the seats of brutalist chairs she set around a game table to boost their comfort. Other designers are stationing them around meal tables, however. Los Angeles interior designer Lauren Piscione placed eight barrel-backed examples in a dining room, their rugged homeyness contributing to the calm of the space.
In a Tudor revival by Seattle interior designer Lisa Staton, a family of five pulls up oak versions made in the Netherlands in the 1970s. A depression in the seat makes them quite comfortable, said Akash Niranjan, the father in the household. “We work from home three days a week and often find ourselves sitting at the dining room table for long stretches and have not had any issues,” he said. “Our three young kids like them as well.”
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Soneva’s groundbreaking Coral Restoration Program in the Maldives has been endorsed by the United Nations and listed on UNESCO’s Ocean Decade platform, recognising it as a global model for reef regeneration and sustainable marine science.
In a landmark moment for marine conservation, the Soneva Foundation’s Coral Restoration Program has received official endorsement from the United Nations and been listed on the UNESCO Ocean Decade website — an international recognition of its pioneering work in large-scale reef restoration.
Based in the Maldives and operating from Soneva Fushi’s AquaTerra science centre, the program is now the region’s largest coral restoration facility. Combining advanced marine biology with local collaboration, it has redefined how the tourism sector can contribute meaningfully to ocean health.
What sets the program apart is its blend of innovation and scale. The facility includes a Coral Spawning and Rearing Lab—Maldives’ first of its kind—replicating natural reef conditions to stimulate coral reproduction. Thirty micro-fragmentation tanks further accelerate coral growth, enabling up to 150,000 coral fragments to be produced and replanted on damaged reefs each year.
Since launching in 2022, Soneva’s coral team has relocated more than 31,000 coral colonies and fragments from threatened areas, establishing a thriving coral hub in the Indian Ocean.
he initiative is managed by Soneva Conservation, a Maldivian NGO set up by the Soneva Foundation, and forms part of the group’s broader sustainability strategy.
“This milestone is a testament to the scientific rigour and community-driven ethos at the heart of our work,” Dr Johanna Leonhardt, Soneva’s Coral Project Manager, said. “It validates the potential of hospitality to lead ocean regeneration at scale.”
Beyond science, the program engages governments, NGOs, research institutions and the wider tourism industry—demonstrating how cross-sector partnerships can drive real environmental impact.
The UN recognition now positions the project as a beacon for similar initiatives globally, reinforcing the Maldives’ role as both a luxury destination and a marine conservation leader.
The Soneva Foundation’s wider environmental efforts include carbon mitigation projects, reforestation, and waste-to-wealth innovation. As part of the Pallion group, Soneva continues to redefine what it means to be a responsible luxury brand.
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