For Anna Karlin, furniture is about creating sculpture that lives in a space. This mindset is at the heart of her Slump Chair, a piece that blends fluidity, movement, and comfort into one striking form.
“I always think of furniture as sculpture in a room,” she says. “My approach is very 360-degrees in terms of where your eye is drawn. I approach it as a sculptural form rather than a traditional chair.”
The chair’s signature “slumped” shape comes from this sculptural way of thinking. “Getting movement into inanimate objects is a beautiful task and something that I certainly was aiming for in this piece,” Anna says. “It always starts with sketches, then tiny 3D clay models, and then I take it to the computer. We did a bunch of scaled 3D prints to nail the exact curvature I wanted, and then we built a full-scale wooden frame to test upholstery and perfect the seam techniques.”
Though the chair is sculptural, Anna never compromised on comfort. “100% ergonomics is a consideration! It has to be super comfortable. The combination of the backrest and leg was an exercise in visual balance and proportion.”
A version of this article originally appeared in “Nice Chairs” in Sixtysix Issue 14.
