Robin Day

Robin Day (b 1915) Robin Day was is a British furniture designer who created the Polypropylene chair, a ubiquitous chair found all over the world in offices, colleges, canteens and more. Born in High Wycombe, he graduated from the Royal College of Art in interior and furniture design. Here he met and married Lucienne Day who went on to become a famous textile designer in her own right Although the pair enjoyed separate success they were often compared to their US counterparts Charles and Ray Eames. In 1949 Robin won the first prize in an international competition for the design of low cost furniture for his wood and tubular storage units. Hille International, an office and educational furniture manufacturer sponsored Robin from 1949 and for many years he went on to create over 150 products including office seating, auditorium seating and office furniture. Robins Day’s public seating designs have been used in areas such as the Tate Gallery, Barbican Centre and London Underground. The polypropylene plastic chair is seen as his greatest success, conservative estimates that over 15 million of these chairs have now been sold across the world. In 1975 Day developed the Polo chair a variation of the polypropylene chair with trademark holes and suitable for indoor and outdoors use