Vitra reissues Jean Prouvé’s Antony Chair as a 2025 limited edition

Antony Limited Edition 2025
Jean Prouvé, 1954

French designer and engineer Jean Prouvé created the Antony chair for the Cité Universitaire in Antony, near Paris, in the early 1950s. Ateliers Jean Prouvé began producing the design after winning a competition to furnish 150 rooms in what was then the largest student residence in Europe. Robust and purposeful, the chair — with its distinctive silhouette — soon found its way into offices, waiting areas, and living rooms.

Antony’s striking metal support frame bears a clear structural relationship to the Compas Direction table. A transverse tubular brace stabilises the legs, while two sheet-metal brackets cradle the elegantly curvilinear plywood seat shell. For the special limited-edition model, the seat shell is crafted from European pine, prized for its expressive grain, which is enhanced by a protective wax finish. The metal structure is powder-coated in Jean Prouvé’s original colour, Rouge Corsaire.

Antony is one of Jean Prouvé’s final furniture designs – and notably, the first chair to be included in the Vitra Design Museum Collection. As such, it holds a unique position within the collection, which today comprises more than 7,000 furniture designs. The vintage model was acquired by Rolf Fehlbaum, Chairman Emeritus of Vitra, during a visit to Paris in 1984, further deepening his interest in Prouvé’s oeuvre. In the years that followed, a close collaboration developed with Jean Prouvé’s family, and since 2000, Vitra has been producing a selection of his furniture designs.

Highlights from the Vitra Design Museum’s growing collection of historical Prouvé furniture were presented to a wider audience in 2006 in the exhibition Jean Prouvé: The Poetics of the Technical Object.

Jean Prouvé Collection

A chair by Jean Prouvé marked the beginning of furniture manufacturer Vitra’s relationship with the French designer’s work. More than two decades on, the collaboration with his heirs remains active and strong. Vitra is now revisiting the collection, introducing new colours and bringing several lesser-known designs into focus.

Without formal architectural training, Jean Prouvé relied on close collaborations with his younger brother, the architect Henri Prouvé, as well as leading modern architects of his time. These included Eugène Beaudoin and Marcel Lods for La Maison du Peuple in Clichy-sous-Bois, and Pierre Jeanneret for a demountable pavilion prototype. Prouvé became renowned for constructions using standardised, prefabricated elements—an approach that addressed the urgent demand for low-cost housing in post-war France. In later years, he worked in Paris as a consulting engineer on major architectural projects, once again shaping architectural history in 1971 when he chaired the jury for the Centre Georges Pompidou competition. His life’s work has secured him a significant place in architectural history.

Colours of the Jean Prouvé Collection

The colours Jean Prouvé developed for his furniture drew inspiration from a wide range of references — from Blé Vert, evoking the hue of young green wheat, to Gris Vermeer, a nod to the muted greys in the paintings of Johannes Vermeer. Guided by his belief in the “nature of a material,” Prouvé maintained that only components susceptible to corrosion should be painted, leaving wooden and aluminium elements untreated whenever possible. Beyond their functional role in rust protection, Prouvé also understood colour’s ability to imbue his designs with a distinct presence.

Vitra is now expanding the palette of the Jean Prouvé Collection to include several original Prouvé colours. Alongside deep black, Japanese red, and Blanc Colombe, the collection will now feature Gris Vermeer, Bleu Dynastie, Blé Vert, and Bleu Marcoule.

For more information, visit W.Atelier’s website.