Celebration (Robin) Day

To mark the birthday of the late great British designer Robin Day, we’re looking to the Heal’s archive to rediscover the award winning storage unit that helped launch his name. A man of many talents, Day began his career in the 1940s as a teacher at Beckenham School of Art where he first met fellow fan of modernist furniture Clive Latimer. It wasn’t, however, until 1948 that the pair would produce the piece that would gain them international acclaim.

The 675 Chair

Designed amidst a post war climate of rationing, Day and Latimer’s storage system was built from affordable yet robust plywood and supported by bent, tubular legs made from recycled aluminium. The result was a contemporary piece of furniture very much in keeping with the bright new mid-century style that was beginning to emerge from the doldrums of wartime austerity.

Originally designed for Heal’s, the multifunctional storage unit was entered into the ‘International Low-Cost Furniture Competition’ at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York taking first place in the storage section.

An international platform on which to showcase Day’s potential, the event acted as a springboard for the designer’s career. Yet few could have predicted the impact he would have, producing some of the most ubiquitous and iconic pieces of the 20^th Century.