青幻舎 SEIGENSHA Art Publishing

A piece of furniture must never have a back. . . . You experience furniture from every angle and it must stand up to being seen from all sides.

——Hans J. Wegner

A master of modern Scandinavian chair design, Hans J. Wegner is celebrated around the world for such works as the Y-Chair and The Chair. This volume brings together over 160 major pieces from the internationally acclaimed collection of chair expert Noritsugu Oda, along with design drawings and valuable archival photographs. Analyses backed by long years of research offer a systematic understanding of Wegner’s prolific oeuvre, while some 500 detailed pen-and-ink studies of Wegner chairs by Oda himself provide an added draw. With its 400-plus pages and large format, this is a book worth treasuring for years to come.

Hans Jørgensen Wegner (1914–2007) was born in Tønder near Denmark’s German border. As a furniture artisan as well as designer, he produced many masterpiece chairs of inspired design grounded in solid craftsmanship and profound insight into his materials. His Y-Chair, The Chair, and other iconic creations are beloved around the world, including in Japan.

Noritsugu Oda, born in Kochi Prefecture in 1946, is professor emeritus of Tokai University and a chair researcher. He began collecting chairs while working in the advertising department of the Takashimaya department store. For more than half a century, he has studied and collected modern furniture, particularly Scandinavian designs of the twentieth century, guided by the principle of using them in daily life. In 1994, he relocated to Hokkaido together with his collection.
　　Oda received the Danish Furniture Prize in 1997. In 2015, he was unanimously selected to receive the inaugural Hans J. Wegner Award in recognition of his internationally presented research on, and major contribution to the contemporary reassessment of, the Danish designer.