Nychair X
ーJapanese Designer Folding Chairs
Ground Floor/ Room No.1
About the Exhibitor
Nychair X is a Japanese folding chair masterpiece with over 55 years of history.
The designer, Takeshi Nii, started making furniture in 1952, and from the beginning, he was focused on making folding furniture. He devoted his life to the pursuit of a perfect folding chair and was highly focused on practicality—he wanted to make pieces that are durable, have low weight, and have relatively small packaging for transport, all without compromising the comfort and beauty of the item, both when folded and opened. Designed in 1970, Nychair X, a steel-frame chair with a durable cotton fabric and wooden armrests, is a pinnacle of his life's work. In the following years, Takeshi Nii added a rocking chair and an ottoman to the product family. The chair was well-received both in Japan and around the world and was manufactured by Nii’s company until his passing.
The right to manufacture the chairs was then passed to Fujiei Corporation, which had previously cooperated with Nii on distribution and, in later years, on a special edition of the chair. While new colourways and some upgrades were introduced, such as a shift to a stainless steel frame, the chair remains unchanged, and to this day, all replacement parts are compatible with the first chairs. The company continues to make Nychair X in Japan with respect to Takeshi Nii’s ideals.
About the Products
Nychair X is a versatile folding chair used across different times and places. The simple, elegant, and functional design befitting any occasion is rooted in Japanese lifestyle and cultural heritage—where the centre of gravity in furniture is lower and rooms serve multiple functions during the day.
The ideas that guided the designer Takeshi Nii in his work are still relevant today. The foldability and light weight make the chair useful in modern modular spaces, where work, leisure, and socialising intersect; it allows you to move the chair to where you want to use it and to fold it when more space is needed. Nychair X flexibly adapts to the changes in the living spaces and lifestyles, and its simple design blends seamlessly with a variety of different interior styles.
Nychair X’s durability, repairability, and small packaging that reduces the transportation impact are in line with sustainability ideals; parts can be replaced at home, which further promotes long-term usage of the chair. The brand is committed to reducing wood and fabric waste, and even offers repair services for customers in Japan.
However, comfort is always at the forefront. The angles between the seat, armrest, and backrest are carefully crafted to support the body, with ergonomics in mind. Each shape provides you with different depths of relaxation that can be further enhanced with an ottoman used as a footrest. The woven fabric adjusts itself to the shape and weight of the user's body, embracing it gently. The natural materials of the soft seat and wooden armrests are pleasant to touch.
Because the chair is made of a small number of different parts, each of them plays an important role in creating the full seating experience. The balance between support and softness of the seat, a smooth folding motion, and reliability; they all require a high level of precision, provided by a network of specialised manufacturers in Japan.
