Foam Furniture Rises Like Bread (Jun, 1970)

Those chairs are really cool. Why do you think they don’t sell flat packed chairs anymore? My guess is because it would be too fun for customers to walk along with a key and puncture them. I know that when I was a snot-nosed little punk I delighted in puncturing the vacuum sealed coffee packs in the supermarket.

Foam Furniture Rises Like Bread

What goes up and doesn’t come down? A new kind of furniture called “Up.” You buy it flat-as-a-pancake in a vinyl package. Cut open the vinyl and the pancake automatically expands into a modern chair. Once expanded, it cannot be recompressed and cannot be punctured.

It works like this: At the factory in Italy the furniture is molded of poly-urethane foam, and covered with stretch upholstery. Then, in a vacuum chamber, the piece is compressed to force out the air, and sealed in the airtight package. Open the package and the foam absorbs air, expanding to its
designed size and shape.

The foam in this furniture is very heavy, and dense enough to fully support you when you sit. The chair below, for example, weighs 90 pounds-packed. Price? A child’s chair costs $63; the armchair below costs $588. In the U.S. you can get it from Atelier International, 139 E. 57th St., New York City 10022.