Chair squared: Richard Lampert

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Don’t fall between two stools – especially not if they are RICHARD LAMPERT’s Prater and Santa Lucia chairs.

Deur Richard Lampert, Herbert Hirche, en Katharina Sommer vir

Richard Lampert

Oktober 26, 2020 | 11:00 pm CUT

A classic and a contemporary design: the Santa Lucia by Herbert Hirche and the Prater Chair by Marco Dessí

Within the restaurant industry, two of Richard Lampert's chairs in particular have proven themselves especially effective. Both are compact and stackable, comfortable and functional – important criteria for successful implementation in bars, restaurants, cafés or canteens. In their design language, however, they present two quite different appearances.

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'In the development process, there are sometimes surprises which then become the actual core value of a piece of furniture.' – Marco Dessì

Each one is unique – Prater Chairs in the Flanders Fields Museum in Ypres, Photo: noArchitecten

In Marco Dessì’s contemporary Prater Chair, traditional formal chair design meets experimental design. Each chair, made of birch plywood (multiplex), is unique. As a result of circular routing of the material, black phenolic resin becomes visible, thus giving this special chair its characteristic value. Among other places, it can be found in the Flanders Field Museum in Ypres, Belgium or at Google’s European Headquarters in London.

In contrast, Santa Lucia is a wickerwork chair which combines austerity and cosiness. With its rattan seat, the chair, designed by Bauhaus-trained architect and designer Herbert Hirche, creates a comfortable ambience while providing a distinctive surprise: the backrest also serves as an armrest.

Santa Lucia offers comfortable seating – whether outdoors at the popular El Cercle restaurant in Barcelona (top, Photo: Paul Escolis) or indoors at the 25hours Hotel Restaurant Bar Shuka in Frankfurt (bottom, Photo: Stephan Lemke)

Originally designed in 1969 for the Stuttgart Trattoria of the same name, the 'Santa Lucia' is equally suitable for indoor and outdoor use – for example, in the trendy restaurant 'El Cercle' in Barcelona, where numerous Santa Lucia chairs on the terrace above the old town invite you to a relaxed dinner, or in the restaurant of the25hours hotel chain in Frankfurt.