Konstantin Grcic says there’s more to him than Chair One

Did you always want to be a designer? “As a kid, I had certain aspirations of being an architect or artist. I didn’t even know that design was a profession. I discovered it when I did an apprenticeship as a cabinetmaker. First, I restored old furniture, then I was trained to make furniture and, through this, I discovered design.”

What was your career-defining moment? “My first industrial product made by an injection-moulding machine was the 2-Hands laundry basket [for German brand Authentics], made of very thin plastic. I wanted to go against a lot of plastic products because they’re usually made in a very economical way, so they use little material and are ugly. My product became a pure application of the material, allowing it to be what it is – thin, flexible, soft and light. It’s still in production, even though it’s more than 20 years old.”

Tell us about your Chair One design for Magis, one of your most well-known creations. “I don’t like to be reduced to one chair, but, of course, I realise it is the most recognisable design because it has a certain kind of power and success. It is a chair that goes to quite an extreme and I like that extreme because it’s the result of a radical process. The project started with a material technology: aluminium die casting.

“Aluminium doesn’t corrode and I thought we should make a chair that is for outdoors because I wanted to design it for public use. We have to deal with elements like heat, cold, dirt and vandalisation.”