Hay

Rey Stacking chair wood / By Bruno Rey x Dietiker, 1971 - Wood

Danish brand Hay has teamed up with renowned Swiss furniture manufacturer Dietiker to pay tribute to Swiss designer Bruno Rey (1935-2019). For the occasion, the iconic ''Rey'' collection, designed by Bruno Rey in 1971, has been given new dimensions and a new color palette, specially selected by Hay.

The first patented chair with a screwless wood-metal connection, the Rey chair was named "the most successful Swiss piece of furniture of all time" by the Swiss Design Museum in Zurich. Sold in over a million units, it is a timeless work of art.

Comprising a chair, stools and tables, the Rey collection retains the iconic unified silhouette and innovative screwless production process, but is updated with new dimensions and colors. As sturdy as the legendary original Rey, an icon of the Deietiker house, the collection has lost none of its charm: sturdy workmanship and characteristic rounded edges. Extraordinarily sturdy, stable and stackable, these pieces with their clean yet distinctive design are suitable for a wide variety of domestic and public spaces.

Bruno Rey (1935-2019) was a Swiss industrial designer who apprenticed as a cabinetmaker before attending the Zurich School of Applied Arts. He is world-famous for his Rey Chair (or ''model 3300''), a Swiss design icon since 1971.The Rey Chair has become one of the most popular chairs in Switzerland: over five decades, it has been sold more than 1.5 million times and can be found in many residential and public spaces.

In the early 1970s, Bruno Rey was looking for a contemporary Wood chair to symbolize the present. He finally found his inspiration in Thonet's 1850 Chair. Bruno Rey developed innovative assembly and design techniques for a new type of Wood chair. The Rey Chair was the first chair to receive a patent for its unique screwless wood-to-metal connection. The chair's legs are connected to the round seat by Aluminium connecting pieces. The Rey Chair, also known as the 3300 model, went into production in 1971. Over time, the collection expanded to include stools and tables.

The curved lines of the Rey collection illustrate Rey's search for organic forms in contrast to the stubborn formalism of the 1960s and 1970s. His use of the curve was a personal revolution against the dominant design doctrine of his time, an attempt to set himself apart from an existing generation of designers.

Bruno Rey: ''In light of the angulo-formalist furniture, cubically austere and lacking in any seating quality, which was common at the timepoque, I suspected for the first time that new forms of round furniture could be both necessary and useful for space and people.''

In detail:

• Variation : Dark wood

• Brand : Hay

• Designer : Bruno Rey

• Type : Stacking chair

• Colour : Dark wood

• Material : Moulded beech plywood seat and back - Solid beech legs - Ecological water-based lacquer - Connecting parts between seat and legs: aluminium

• Dimensions : L 44 x Depth 49 cm x H 80 cm - Seat: H 44 cm
• Weight : 13.86 lb
• Characteristics : Chair Rey (model 3300) originally designed by Swiss designer Bruno Rey in 1971 (1935-2019) - Icon of Swiss industrial design - Stacking chair (x 4) - Plastic glides - 10-year warranty (quality and durable furniture )
• Country of Manufacture : Europe