Description

SOLD for more than our asking price!

Limited time ONLY $1090 PER chair. Call (or SMS) us to buy these chairs.

LOCATION– being sold under consignment from a private seller in ABERFOYLE PARK, ADELAIDE. Delivery Australia-wide is possible. It’d cost about $250 to transport both chairs and the footstool to Melbourne (to give you an idea of interstate furniture freight costs).

Provenance and Background Info

(Written in 2022)

This is an amazing design and much under-priced here. Once we have a swag of people following iNVISeDGE for this design I have no doubt values will increase (and quickly). We’ve sold other Rufenacht lounge chairs for well over double this- get in now before that happens. This pair is a fascinating piece of Australian design history. These chairs have the HOWE LEATHER labels from the 1970’s, Lamitech labels of Dry Creek (near Port ADELAIDE), PLUS one of the chairs has a JOE RUFENACHT foil label on the underside. (And there’s also a Serial Number / Design Number imprinted on the inner underside bar of at least one chair too.) Because it’s a foil label it’d be obvious in a heart-beat if it was removed from another chair and stuck on this one. It has definitely been there since new in the 1970’s.

This adds a lot of appeal to this fascinating set. Regular iNVISeDGE sellers in Adelaide have occasionally come across this design in their search for the cream of Australian furniture design but we’ve never seen this design with a Joe Rufenacht label on before. I’m pretty sure Joe Rufenacht has passed away so I don’t know if we can get any definitive information about this but based on my 21 years in this business (written in 2022) I believe Lamitech had witnessed Joe Rufenacht rise to prominence with his award-winning designs so approached him to collaborate and create a design for Lamitech. (This pairing of prominent furniture-makers with celebrated designers happened a lot in Europe at the time.) If you have evidence of how Rufenacht collaborated with Lamitech, we’d be most interested to hear. (Ph. 0412 757 348).

The main reason I believe this design to be Rufenacht’s is because it’s exceptional in EVERY regard (and what Rufenacht did was always exceptional). The comfort is out-of-this-world! After I sat down in one of these chairs I said, “it’s like you’re being hugged”. Our vendor’s mother piped in immediately and said, “no it’s like you’re being spooned.” And she’s right … The comforting feeling can only accurately be likened to being spooned. Just look at the angles here. The back is curved in TWO ways- down at the lumbar area and it’s ALSO curved and angled as it comes up along your entire back. This chair has been designed to PERFECTLY meld with the human body. But there’s more. The padding is sensational- not too much, not too little- plus it wraps in around your sides. (The armrests seem to hug you too.) This is a comfort that has to be experienced to be believed- everyone at home will be fighting for these chairs! The other incredible thing about these is that there are two different sizes here- which I only noticed once I started playing with the configuration to show the chairs from all angles. From a short distance away, each chair looks the same. Some “his” and “her” chairs can look a bit odd- I don’t think these do at all. The proportions of each are the same so they look great together. Rufenacht has come up trumps yet again!

Joe Rufenacht won various prestigious design awards for his swivel chairs in 1978- this design is just as good in my opinion (and we’re selling his swivel chairs for well over double this … if and when we get them.) He was fastidious about design (sooo careful to get everything EXACTLY RIGHT). My intuition here is screaming, “They have to be Joe Rufenacht!” … I can’t imagine anyone else in Australia having the fussiness (and ability) to do the design this well (plus the Rufenacht foil label is there so who could really to argue it ??) …. But I am open to hearing anything different here- if you have evidence.

The longer I experienced this design in my vendor’s home, the more they excited me. I know it’s embarrassing to say that a furniture design would excite anyone but when you’ve been in this industry as long as I have when something stands apart and truly inspires, it excites… So the chairs spoon you, and they absolutely excite someone who you may call a furniture expert- perhaps the best summary here might be “sex on sticks”!  :+)

The gentle rocking motion of the design is also wonderful. The durability; out-of-this-world. These chairs are at least 45 years old and look fit to last another 45 years. They’re a no-brainer INVESTMENT in every sense of the word. The only way the value of these can go in the future is up, “to infinity and beyond”. New designs just don’t compare and look at the quality of this VINTAGE Howe Leather. I’ve said it before; I’ll say it again, vintage Howe Leather is some of the best leather you’ll ever come across in the WORLD! Us Aussies are not really the country-bumpkins the rest of the world like to portray us to be- these chairs are solid-proof of that.

Plus there’s the matching footstool as well- does it really get any better? Yep … on top of everything, this is a stunning classic look that will NEVER go out of style. Exceptional design is not influenced by trends, it stands apart. Rufenacht created 40 PROTOTYPES before he was happy with his award-winning swivel chair, I reckon this design (in two different sizes) took at least that.

JR furniture (Rufenacht’s company) closed its doors in 2006 unable to compete with cheap overseas (Chinese) imports any longer. The 30-year history of this Australian business has etched a permanent place in Australian furniture design and production history.

If you’re keen on longevity with all your “purchases” (investments), you want items that evade landfill, are made in Australia, not wrapped in copious amounts of plastic for transport PLUS you want to support current Australian small businesses, look no further. This Joe Rufenacht suite is set to be passed onto future generations- a symbol that when something is done well, it will live on. If Rufenacht’s designs are not yet in the Australian museums, they will be. (I have no doubt about that.)

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