All a flutter

You can’t get in and out of them with any grace and you can’t sit upright... but that’s the charm of the butterfly chair, a design classic made popular in the 50s and 60s. Made out of steel and replaceable canvas, the mid century originals were cheap, different and fun. Argentinian architect Jorge Ferrari-Hardoy is credited with their design, in 1938, and the chair won two awards at the 1940 Buenos Aires design fair. But it was two purchases by Edgar Kaufmann Jr that really made the butterfly chair famous; Kaufmann Jr bought one for his parent’s house (Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater) and the Museum of Modern Art where he worked. You can get butterfly chairs (the one below made even more stylish by interiors architect Penny Hay) in New Zealand from Flutter Design.