[lqet]

I am surprised to see that my beloved Poäng armchair (mine has served me well for 20 years now, with a new upholstery every 6 years) is already present on the cover of the 1977 catalogue: https://ikeacatalogues.ikea.com/77436/1102677/pages/4a7b75dd...

The part for sitting seems to have been made out of metal back then, in my version, it is the same plywood material as the frame.

[Gravityloss]

Usually with furniture there are forerunner designers / manufacturers that establish an innovation, then all mass manufacturers copy it a decade or two or five later.

For example the cantilever laminated wood frame chair made an appearance already in the 1930s. https://www.artek.fi/en/products/armchair-401

Cantilever steel tube + cane chair Cesca from 1928. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesca_Chair

[aqsalose]

It was a retro-chair already in the 1970s. See here Aalto's Armchair 406 (made and sold by Artek) from 1939.

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=Armchair+406+aalto&iax=imag...

[tonyedgecombe]

It's interesting to see the price of the Poäng over time:

https://fivethirtyeight.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/roede...

from:

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-weird-economics-of-...

I know people here like to criticise Ikea but they are remarkably good at squeezing cost out of their business.

[2muchcoffeeman]

Billy has been around since 1979. Don’t mess with the classics!

[lqet]

I was aware of that, but I would've never guessed that IKEA started selling Poäng before they started selling Billy.