The idea of the so-called Monobloc chair is based on an old vision shared by many designers: to make a chair out of a single piece of material. Experiments with this idea date back to the 1920s – early attempts involved pressing sheet metal or bending laminated wood. Beginning in the 1950s, new plastics technology made it possible to fabricate chairs by moulding or pressing the material into the desired shape in a single production step. The moniker Monobloc is derived from this simple production method and the plain appearance of the resulting furniture pieces. The first mass-produced models include the Panton Chair (1958-68), conceived by Danish designer Verner Panton, the Bofinger Chair (1964-68) by German architect Helmut Bätzner, and the chair Selene (1961-68), a creation by Italian designer Vico Magistretti.
