Steelwood Chair

The metal-punching facility is down the road from the Magis headquarters in Motta di Livenza, in northeastern Italy. Steel sheets, 191⁄2 inches high, 45 inches wide, and less than 1⁄16-inch thick, undergo a process that was developed during three years of collaboration between Magis, the production team, and the Bouroullecs. “When we made the initial drawings, we expected a lot from this kind of technique,” says Erwan Bouroullec, remembering the chair’s early days. “We were thinking about old cars made from punched metal and their fine organic shapes. We made a drawing—–unsure of whether the process would allow it—–and sent it to Italy. They said, ‘Yes, it’s possible.’”

A machine presses a sheet of metal against a mold with immense force, changing the shape by cutting, folding, bending, or making holes. Eight tools form the chair back in eight minutes. The first steps are shearing; cutting out openings for the back and four bolt holes; and coining, softening the edges of the cuts as on a coin. Designing the process required many models. “They made prototypes about assembly, material, and resistance,” says Bouroullec. “On our side, we made more mockups to find the right shape, the right contour, and the character of the chair.”

The tool that folds the curve of the back of the chair is the most dramatic, but it is no more essential than the others, which trim the edges, cut the holes, and add a final soft angle to the armrests.

The production design had its challenges. “Getting the edges trimmed just right was tricky,” says Perazza. “Another delicate moment was folding the U-shaped curve of
the back, because you have to avoid getting creases in the contour.” Though the tooling is impossible to alter dramatically once it’s made, there is a touch of flexibility. “The tools consist of a lot of different parts fixed in a metal surface,” explains Bouroullec. “So it is possible to adapt them slightly”—–which they did, to stop the inner surface from buckling when bent.

“I am so respectful of the supplier,” he adds. “There is buckling, and they say, ‘We’re going to move this part slightly and it should solve the problem,’ and indeed, it solves the problem. It’s a bit like making a cake: You don’t make a calculation; you know what to do because you have experience. They have been developing highly complex shapes for decades. They are like incredible cooks.” The first production run made 5,000 chairs.