Pretty restaurant seat: The Globus chair

The year was 1994. Mariah Carey was crooning about her Hero on the radio, Tom Hanks was saying that life is like a box of chocolates on the big screen as Forrest Gump. And in the furniture design world, Jesus Gasca introduced something that would become a classic: the Globus Chair.

The chair is in use in many restaurants, cafés, bistros, and bars all over the world. With its sleek good looks, it is something that fit right in as bar furniture UK patrons and elsewhere would appreciate. The Globus Chair is a production of Gasca’s Spanish company, Stua, whose products are carried exclusively in the United States by Design Within Reach.

It has a chromed steel frame, and the seat and back are available in wenge-stained alpi, natural beech, and lacquered beech plywood. The chair measures 33.5 inches high, 18 inches high and 21.5 inches deep. The seat height is 18.5 inches. It doesn’t look too formal, yet not too casual either. It looks just right, making it suitable for a wide variety of hospitality settings. The hole at the back of the seat serves more than just a decorative purpose: it can be used as a handle to facilitate moving, it permits ventilation, and it helps relieve back pressure. The way the seat flows down at the edge is aimed at providing a comfortable experience even after sitting in it for many hours. There are attachments at the bottom of the seat that help protect the chairs when they are stacked. Plus, the plastic glides on the legs prevent scuff marks on flooring.

The creator of the Globus Chair, Jesus Gasca, has an eye for detail, and it looks like this chair is one of the results of his meticulous design attitude. Technical knowhow combined with aesthetics is usually a good thing, as this chair shows.