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Ergon Chair
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Ergon Chair

Designer: 
William Stumpf
Ergon Chair

The Ergon chair, with an innovative gas-cylinder post mount to absorb impact of "heavy" sitters, was designed by William Stumpf for Herman Miller, Inc. and introduced in 1976.

William Stumpf (b. 1936) is a US furniture designer based in Minneapolis. He received a Bachelor's degree in industrial design at University of Illinois in 1959, and a Masters from University of Wisconsin in 1968. He has worked with the Herman Miller Furniture Company since the early 1970s, using ergonomic research to "make a beautiful chair comfortable." Among many others he designed, along with Don Chadwick, were the Equa chair, introduced in 1984, and the Aeron chair of 1995, both for Herman Miller. The latter was named a "Design of the Decade" by IDSA in 2000.

These chairs have joined the ranks of classic design chairs in the last half of the 20th century, which include Niels Diffrient's Jefferson Task Chair of 1984 for SunarHauseman; the Charles Eames fiberglass chair for Herman Miller (see 1948); the Jens Risom Chair for Knoll (see 1943); Harry Bertoia's Diamond Chairs of 1952 for Knoll; Eero Saarinen's Pedestal Chair of 1956 and Womb Chair of 1948 for Knoll; Eames molded plywood chairs in 1947, 1951and 1953, and his lounge chair and ottoman of 1956, all for Herman Miller; and Vernor Panton's one-piece stacking fiberglass chair of 1967 for Herman Miller.

Sources: 
100 Years of Design consists of excerpts from a book by Carroll M. Gantz, FIDSA, entitled, Design Chronicles: Significant Mass-produced Designs of the 20th Century, published August 2005 by Schiffer Publications, Ltd.