What is a Tulip Chair?

In 2007, the tulip chair celebrated its 50th birthday. Eero Saarinen designed this visually arresting chair, which many have said evokes the space age and ultra modern design. Saarinen’s design, which he discussed in Time Magazine the year before its release in 1957 was meant to evoke interest and so away with chair legs by creating a single base from the middle of the chair seat. The base widened at the bottom to a circle, to lend more stability to the chair, and so that the chair could swivel. The upper half of the tulip chair is a simple, streamlined construction, with a padded seat cushion, and slightly curved back. Typical tulip chair colors were at first white, with black pads. Today you can find the tulip chair in many color patterns: white/red, platinum/red, and black/black are a few. From pictures it's difficult to glean the materials of the chair base and seat, especially since most pictures show the white version, which looks very much like white plastic used in chairs ...  more