Robin Day designs are some of the most acclaimed and significant British furniture pieces of the 20th century. His influential furniture designs introduced materials such as plywood, steel and plastic into the modern design world.
The Forum designed by Robin Day is an icon of mid-century design. Originally designed in 1964, the sofa and armchair feature a hardwood frame beautifully crafted with a finger joint detail, supported by chrome plated legs mounted to the outside of the frame. The visible construction is integral to the design; Day purposefully exposed these elements to showcase the beauty of its form.
Case has worked in close partnership with the Robin and Lucienne Day Foundation to bring this iconic design back into production, nearly 60 years after it was first launched. Design drawings and an example of the original production were carefully studied and a new production developed which maintains the integrity of Robin Day’s design. Attention to detail has included recreating the exact seat angle and the full width timber plank casing, while incorporating modern materials such as Dacron-wrapped foam cushions to ensure ultimate comfort and cushion structure, solid walnut or oak to replace the tropical hardwood veneers used in the 1960s, and a metal-reinforced frame for strength and longevity.
Paula Day; Founder, Trustee & Chair, The Robin and Lucienne Day Foundation comments:
“I grew up with my father Robin Day’s Forum. He furnished our living room at Cheyne Walk with two Forum sofas when they first launched in the 1960s, and chose to continue using them for nearly half a century. With this bold design, he challenged the convention of hiding a sofa’s timber frame under the upholstery, instead placing it on the outside to create the Forum’s handsome and unmistakable signature feature. So it’s a real pleasure to see the original Forum returning in Case’s authentic reissue. Case has worked with dedication to achieve a high-quality new production which is true to the original dimensions and respectful of the original aesthetic.”
Exclusive to Case, the Forum is available as a sofa and armchair in both walnut and oak, with a black leather and mocha brown leather option, plus a fabric option of either cream, moss or petrol bouclé for a textured seat.
An icon of 20th century design, the 675 was created in 1952 by Robin Day. The legendary British designer used innovatively moulded plywood to shape the chair’s walnut-veneered backrest and armrests in a single, fluid curve.
In close collaboration with the Robin and Lucienne Day Foundation, Case revisited the original design with careful attention to detail.
Case have been willing to go the extra mile to develop a product which is very close to my fathers actual 1952 design. The result is startlingly fresh and authoritative; one glance is enough to convince that this is the real Robin Day 675 design, vigorous, poised and finely proportioned. Like all his chairs, it is also very comfortable.
- Paula Day, daughter of Robin & Lucienne Day.
No assembly required.
The 675 Chair was awarded the prestigious Design Guild Mark in 2015. The Design Guild Mark is awarded by The Furniture Makers Company in order to drive excellence and raise the profile of British design and innovation. It recognises the highest standards in the design of furnishings and lighting for volume production, by the finest designers working in Britain, or British designers working abroad.
The West Street Chair is a pared-down design based on a simple cube shape. The result of a challenge that designer Robin Day took on to create a chair with the simplest form, the West Street Chair started life as a personal project. Named after the home Robin and Lucienne Day moved to in 1999, 21 West Street, this modern chair was taken on by Case as a simple desk or occasional chair.
From as early as the 1980s "my father had been working on the idea of an armchair based on the form of a cube" explains Paula Day, daughter of Robin Day. Robin hand-crafted a prototype of the West Street Chair in his workshop in Chelsea. The Financial Times wrote in 2014 "most of the Days married life for more than half a century was spent at their London riverside home on Cheyne Walk, where they worked at back-to-back drawing boards in their ground-floor studio, and where Robin designed in his basement workshop". Paula explains "for many years my parents used it as their 'telephone' chair in the living room at Cheyne Walk, and later in Chichester [at 21 West Street]. I now have it in my own home."
Robin and Lucienne modelled the interior of 21 West Street, just opposite Chichester cathedral, on a smaller version of their Chelsea home at Cheyne Walk. Robin built a small studio in the courtyard garden, where he finished the design.
The solid wood frame has upholstered leather pads on the seat and back, with the back pad angled slightly for extra comfort.
No assembly required.
All archive images copyright Robin and Lucienne Day Foundation
