Olivier Mourgue Red Djinn Chair for Airborne, 1960s, French Design

Djinn chair designed by influential French designer Olivier Mourgue, France, Airborne, 1965. The chair was viewed as futuristic when it first debuted and used in Stanely Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey. The low-slung lounge chair — named for the shapeshifting djinn, or spirits, that appear in the Koran — has an undulating seat that appears as if it were folded from a single piece of material. The illusion is an effect of its assembly, which sees curved tubular steel covered with urethane foam. This chair is covered in a wool fabric and in very good condition.

“The good object is very movable and displaceable; inventions and creations are light,” Mourgue wrote in an essay for the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s 1983 exhibition “Design Since 1945.” “It was in this spirit that I constructed my ‘Djinn’ seats.”

Released by the French manufacturer Airborne International, the chair was part of a Djinn series that included an equally sculptural chaise longue and footstool.

The chairs came in bold variations such as red, yellow, blue and green, with the idea that the jersey could be zipped off and changed seasonally or to meet shifting tastes. Because the material and foam tend to deteriorate over time, vintage versions are likely to require restoration. Mourgue said in 1965 that “things should have a short life,” yet in more than 50 years since its debut, his Djinn chair remains a popular vision of a space-age future.

MEASUREMENTS: 27.56ʺW × 29.53ʺD × 27.56ʺH 13.7" Seat Height

ORIGIN: FRANCE

MATERIALS: Wool Upholstery and Polyether Foam, Tubular Steel Frame Foam