Myto chair by designer Konstantin Grcic

Three forces combined to take top honors at this year’s IMM Cologne, an annual international show to award outstanding interior design. Italian furniture designers Plank, chemical manufacturers BASF and designer Konstantin Grcic put their heads together to create the Myto, a revolutionary cantilever chair.

The seat, only one eighth of an inch thick in places, can sustain up to 440 pounds. BASF re-defined the properties of their patented plastic called Ultradur High Speed, previously used in automobiles, specifically for this project. The unique qualities of a strong but highly flexible material like Ultradur allowed Grcic to fashion a lightweight, stackable, cost-effective chair from a minimum of materials.

Grcic, a well-respected German innovator tapped Plank, 100-year furniture veterans and injection molding specialists, to mass-produce the chair. In a little over a year, the Myto went from design to finished product, a record pace for such a venture.

The accolades received in Cologne ensure the Myto – now a permanent exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art and currently available for $495 U.S. in eight different colors – will be around to meet the needs of interior designers and consumers alike for years to come.

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