A seat at the table: Czech chairs for a Finnish bar

Joanna Laajisto of Helsinki’s Creative Studio has, after extensive renovation work, developed the interior design for the "Intro" bar and restaurant in the Finnish city of Kuopio. For the chairs, she chose – among others – two models from the Merano design range by Alexander Gufler, who works for the long-standing Czech company TON. This was a good choice, for the Merano chair has been showered with honours and prizes since it was designed: the chair and barstool have won not only the iF Design Award, but also Special Mention at the 2015 German Design Award event. The eldest child of the chair family, the armchair, has been on the market since 2010. It alone has received international recognition in the form of the reddot design award and the Good Design Award. Both chair and barstool feature a substructure of solid wood combined with the pleasing shapes of the bowed plywood used for seats and backs. Thanks to the manufacturing technology, the seats are quite light and have no screws or metal components.