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El Greco Gallery

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Although the cantilever chair has been a success story for over eighty years, .05 is the first model whose uncompromising form and flexible comfort surpass the archetypal chair without back legs designed by Mart Stam in 1926.

The sleek, linear shape of .05 is its aesthetic hallmark, while its construction provides for a comfortable seat. Made of resilient polyurethane integral foam, the shell adapts to the body. When the sitter leans back, the upper part of the backrest yields slightly – a pleasant sensation created by the integrated leaf springs. Together with the typical flexing effect of the cantilever base, this makes .05 surprisingly comfortable – a quality that is fully appreciated only through use.

The cantilever base of .05 is made of stainless steel, making the chair suitable for outdoor use as well. The .05 chair is also available in a stacking version.

About Designer
Maarten Van Severen
Maarten Van Severen studied architecture at the Art Academy in Ghent. He designed his first furniture pieces in 1986 and in the following year established an independent workshop, where he pursued the limited, semi-industrial production of his own furniture designs. This unified process of design and production was long a fundamental aspect of his work, which was devoted to the examination of basic furniture types: chair, table, chaise longue, shelving, cabinet. Van Severen developed primary solutions for these categories based on a comprehensive investigation of the questions of form, material and construction. In 1990, he began to collaborate closely with Rem Koolhaas and also turned his attention to interior design tasks. During this period he also assumed teaching positions at a variety of institutions, including University College West Flanders in Kortrijk (1996), the Academy of Fine Arts in Maastricht (1996-97), Delft University of Technology (1998) and universities in Helsinki and Barcelona (2000). The beginning of Maarten Van Severen's collaboration with Vitra in 1996 marked a new phase in his career. It offered him the opportunity to work with new materials and also brought a much wider degree of exposure and influence. Until his death in 2005 in Ghent, Maarten Van Severen developed a range of new designs for Vitra, which have progressively entered series production.