Hans Wegner: The Wishbone Chair and CH Lounge Classics

Hans Wegner designed close to 500 chairs over his career, and somehow one of them, a chair he made in 1949 with a Y-shaped back and a woven paper-cord seat, is still one of the most copied and most bought dining chairs in the world. That's the Wishbone Chair. Here's what makes it worth understanding before you buy one, plus a look at the rest of Wegner's lounge classics.

Who was Hans Wegner?
Hans Wegner was a Danish furniture designer active from the 1940s through the 1990s, and one of the central figures in what's now called Danish Modern. He trained as a cabinetmaker before becoming a designer, which shows up in almost everything he made, his chairs are built the way a craftsman would build them, with joinery and proportions that hold up to close inspection, not just from across the room.

The Wishbone Chair explained: frame, Y-back, and paper-cord seat
The Wishbone Chair, officially the CH24, gets its name from the Y-shaped piece that forms the chair's backrest, steam-bent from a single piece of solid wood. Below it, the seat is hand-woven from paper cord, a material Wegner chose partly out of necessity during a post-war material shortage in Denmark, and partly because it turned out to be durable, breathable, and comfortable in a way few other materials matched. Each seat takes roughly 400 feet of paper cord and around an hour of hand-weaving to complete, still done by hand today.

Wishbone Chair dimensions and how it fits a dining table
The CH24 sits at a standard dining height, with a seat height around 18 inches, which fits most dining tables in the 28 to 30 inch range without issue. The chair's arms sit low enough to tuck under most table edges, so it works fine at tables where bulkier armchairs wouldn't fit. If you're buying a set for an existing table, measure the clearance under your tabletop to your current chairs and compare, the Wishbone's arm height is usually similar to a standard armless dining chair.

Wood, finish, and seat options: paper cord vs upholstered
The Wishbone Chair is available in a range of woods, oak, beech, and walnut being the most common, each in a few different finish options from natural oil to painted. The seat is almost always the natural paper cord, though a black paper-cord option exists for a more contemporary look, and some buyers add a seat cushion for extra comfort without changing the chair itself.

Caring for a paper-cord seat
Paper cord holds up better than people expect, but it's not indestructible. A few basics:

* Keep it out of direct, prolonged sun exposure, which can dry out and discolour the cord over time.

* Avoid placing it somewhere it will regularly get wet.

* If a seat does wear out after years of heavy use, it can be rewoven rather than replaced, which is part of the point of the design.

Wegner lounge classics beyond the Wishbone
The Wishbone Chair gets most of the attention, but Wegner's CH lounge series is worth knowing too. The CH25 and CH28 lounge chairs bring the same paper-cord and solid-wood approach to a lower, more relaxed seat, built for reading corners and living rooms rather than dining tables. If you like the material story of the Wishbone Chair but want something for lounging, these are the natural next step.

Wishbone Chair for dining rooms vs kitchens vs desks
The CH24 is technically a dining chair, but its light weight (it's easy to move with one hand) and simple silhouette mean it shows up in kitchens as an everyday chair and at desks as an occasional seat, too. It's less common as a full-time desk chair since it isn't adjustable, but for a desk that gets occasional use rather than eight-hour days, it works fine.