Norman Cherner

A student and later a teacher at the Columbia University Fine Arts Department, Norman Cherner also spent part of his career as an instructor at New York’s MoMA from 1947 until 1949. Trained in the Bauhaus tradition, Cherner soon found himself on a lifelong exploration of multidisciplinary design, creating a vast repertoire of creations; from furniture, glassware, lighting and accessories to his pioneering work in low-cost prefabricated housing.

Determined to make affordable design a reality, Norman Cherner wrote numerous books on the subject and even created a prototype for low-cost housing in upstate New York to accommodate the surge of post-war prosperity and the baby boom. However, it is for the moulded plywood seating he created for Plycraft that Cherner is best-known. Honoured with furniture in the permanent collections in prestigious museums such as the Vitra Design Museum, the Cherner Chair remains a design icon.