The best-selling classic French A56 metal coffee chair

To Paris walk, you can not help but sit down for a cup of coffee in a small cafe on the Seine River and watch the pedestrians shuttle. Most of you will sit on a metal chair called A56. This chair is designed by French designer Jean. Designed by Jean Pauchard in 1956, this chair has been used since it came out. His A56 chair is a classic in design. Produced by France's TOLIX company, it has been selling well for many years and has become the signature symbol of French cafes.

This chair began to consider the design, may still use galvanized process to protect metal components began, early metal furniture often rust seriously, and as an outdoor cafe chair, need to be strong and durable, metal is naturally a more suitable material, but the technical corrosion problem has not been well solved, with paint protection, paint will fall off, and finally rust, neither durable nor good-looking. In 1907, the Frenchman Zavi. Xavier Pauchard saw the problem of frequent corrosion of metal components and sought to protect metal products from oxidation by galvanizing. That's how the idea came about.

We are now afraid that the galvanizing process has been relatively unfamiliar, because there are more ways to solve the problem of corrosion after metal oxidation, because now we have more materials and more technological means, such as stainless steel, alloys, and composite materials. But in the early 20th century, there were only a few metal options, and the metal was mostly iron, corrosion was definitely a big problem, and zinc plating was probably the best protection method for iron structures.

The processing method is also very simple, that is, the iron furniture completed by the structure is immersed in molten zinc, and the anti-corrosion effect of zinc plating is very good. Therefore, some zinc plating factories have appeared in Europe, among which, in France, there are many zinc plating factories. Burgundy's Tolix factory is a professional galvanizing factory, a lot of metal household goods are galvanized here, galvanized furniture, supplies are shiny, very good looking, business is also very good, among which galvanized furniture, the most famous is a chair in 1934. This is the old Bochard design, the use of iron to do the support and seat, back, and then galvanized rust prevention, color is mostly gray, called Mary A Chair (Marais A Chair) Many people like this galvanized chair, but this chair design is relatively heavy, by 1956, Xavier Pauchard's son Jean. Bochard modified the design of the chair, making it elegant, slender, and elegant after galvanizing. Bochard had several design premises: first, the chair was designed for outdoor use; second, it was designed for people who sat outdoors for a long time and drank coffee, so it had to be very comfortable at the angle; and third, it had to be able to stack and store, which was convenient for stacking when the small cafe was closed. Jean Bochard named the new chair A56. This chair is very practical and especially suitable for those called bistro and small cafes in France. If this chair is famous, it is one of the most commonly used chairs in French cafes, especially outdoor cafes and bistros. It is everywhere in Paris streets, along the Seine River and on the right bank of the left bank. Three generations of French people have sat on this A56 chair to brag. You can imagine how deep that generational relationship is.

For coffee shops, this chair also has special advantages: when it is stacked up, it is particularly tight, 25 chairs are stacked together, and the height is only a little more than 2 meters. A coffee shop can stack all the chairs at night, saving a lot of space for storage. Plus galvanized metal furniture, not afraid of the wind and sun. This chair is mass-produced in the factory, quality standard, reasonable price, british designer terrence. Terence Conran said: "This chair symbolizes the perfection of democracy, both as a mass-produced product and as one that can be used anywhere, in a word, it is social."

I went to Paris for the first time. I wanted to read a few pages in a sidewalk cafe in the afternoon. I sat on an A56 chair. It was light olive green. I couldn't like or hate it. Anyway, it was a very practical chair. Later, I sat too much. Some cafes didn't have A56. I would look around for it.

A56 Chair What is medium level: 72 cm high, 45 wide, 46 deep, weighing 5 kg, belongs to a relatively heavy chair, this weight is very comfortable outdoors, because unlike the plastic chairs that appeared later, the weight is too light, a little swaying feeling, also unlike those aluminum alloy steel pipe chairs, light, one hand can lift two, a certain weight, a sense of confidence, sit firmly, may be really this reason, In Paris, customers in front of cafes with A56 chairs always sit longer.

Why do we have feelings for this ordinary chair? The reason is that it is integrated into Paris cafe life. When talking about Paris life, there must be cafes, especially those street cafes that are open day and night, and more than half of these cafes use A56 chairs.

There are rumors in the design circle that the Mary A56 chair designed by Old Bochard is used by meteorologists on the deck of warships, so it weighs only 5 kilograms and is all galvanized and rust-proof. No one has ever checked this rumor. However, the demand for this strong and rust-proof A56 has always remained high. The design has not changed. The light gray surface has some traces of sandpaper grinding left during processing, which has become the signature trace of A56. Those without abrasion marks are not genuine goods. The four chair legs are wrapped in rubber to prevent noise and damage to the floor when placed on a metal chair. The A56 is a public chair that is not afraid of wind and rain and can be permanently placed outdoors. The ideal height for stacking is 10. Pay attention to the paint to refresh from time to time, so that there is a sense of A56 temperament ah!