The Ant
A light, stackable chair in a single piece of moulded plywood, made for the canteen at Novo Nordisk. Its shape recalls an ant.
The waist – where the seat narrows – is both form and structure.
Arne Jacobsen was a Danish architect and designer. In 1952 he designed the Ant chair for the staff canteen of the pharmaceutical company Novo, now Novo Nordisk. The chair was manufactured by the furniture company Fritz Hansen. It was meant to be light, stackable and cheap to produce. Jacobsen had trained at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen and had designed functionalist buildings in the 1930s, including the Bellevue area north of Copenhagen.
The chair consists of a single piece of moulded plywood forming both seat and backrest. The shape narrows in the middle, like a waist, and recalls an ant. The legs are of tubular steel. The original version had three legs, and Jacobsen wanted it to keep that form. Since his death the chair has also been made with four legs.
The form is simple and supple. The seat and back form a continuous curve that adapts to the body. The waist allows the wood to bend in two directions without splitting, and also gives the chair a light and elegant appearance.
The chair is made of several thin layers of veneer that are glued and pressed in a mould. The technique was developed in the 1940s, and designers such as Charles and Ray Eames in the United States had shown what it could achieve. Jacobsen took the technique a step further by making seat and back in one piece. Getting the moulded wood to hold in the tight curves, especially at the waist, was technically demanding, and careful trials were needed before the chair could go into series production.
The Ant has been interpreted as an expression of Scandinavian design in the 1950s: simple, functional, democratic and beautiful. It was meant for many people, not just an elite. At the same time it was a modern creation that showed what industry could do with new materials.
Jacobsen later designed the Series 7 chair, made in the same technique but with a broader shape, which became even more widespread. He was also the architect of buildings such as the SAS Royal Hotel in Copenhagen, where he designed everything from the building to the furniture and cutlery. He died in 1971. During the Second World War Jacobsen, who was of Jewish descent, fled to Sweden, returning to Denmark after the war.
The Ant has become one of the best-known chairs in Danish design. It is in Designmuseum Danmark in Copenhagen and in many other collections. It is still made by Fritz Hansen and comes in many colours and finishes. In Danish the chair is called Myren, after its shape.