Grupo Austral (Antonio Bonet, Juan Kurchan, Jorge Ferrari Hardoy)

Argentina

Art Collective

Designer

Antoni Bonet Born 2 June 1913 Barcelona, Spain Died 13 September 1989 Barcelona, Spain Juan Kurchan Born 21 November 1913 Buenos Aires, Argentina Died 3 November 1975 Buenos Aires, Argentina Jorge Ferrari-Hardoy Born 1914 Buenos Aires, Argentina Died 1977 Buenos Aires, Argentina Antoni Bonet, Juan Kurchan, and Jorge Ferrari-Hardoy completed their architectural studies between 1937 and 1939 in Barcelona and Buenos Aires respectively. In 1938 they worked in Le Corbusier’s Paris studio on his unrealised master plan for Buenos Aires. During the same year they designed the B.K.F. chair, which became their best-known work. In 1939 they founded Grupo Austral in Buenos Aires and published the modernist manifesto ‘Voluntad y Acción’. From 1940 the B.K.F. chair was manufactured in New York for Artek-Pascoe, although wartime material shortages temporarily interrupted production. Between 1943 and 1946 the group designed reinforced-concrete housing in the Martínez district of Greater Buenos Aires, while Bonet also designed the Solana del Mar hotel and restaurant in Punta Ballena, Uruguay. From 1947 to 1950 the B.K.F. chair was produced by Knoll Associates and by other manufacturers in the United States and internationally. After Knoll ceased production in 1950, the chair remained widely distributed and continues to be manufactured and adapted worldwide.