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Coquille Chair

Black Coquille Chair standing in shallow water with its wire-rib back and legs mirrored, and the Coquille wordmark
Curved steel ribs of the Coquille Chair curling over a deep purple upholstered seat, seen against a blue backdrop

Elegantly curved ribs sit atop a swivel base

Coquille

A classic but innovative chair

Lensvelt, together with Powerhouse Company, developed an indoor-outdoor chair, called Coquille.
Coquille is a classic but innovative chair, technically advanced and hand-made in Italy. Coquille is also 100 per cent recyclable and available in any colour imaginable. The original inspiration for Coquille was a classic, modernist bistro chair made of curved wood and rattan and takes its name from Boticelli's birth of Venus.

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Quote from Hans Lensvelt, CEO of Lensvelt, on the technically difficult base that makes the design unforgettable

Ingredients for collaboration

As a respected furniture label, Lensvelt provides both architects and interior designers with the right tools to create the best possible interiors. Together with Powerhouse Company, we developed a chair that is solid, durable, comfortable, and well-designed, which to us is sober, functional, and logical.

Surprisingly sophisticated our tubular steel chair is a homage to one of nature’s most amazing designs – and to human ingenuity: technically audacious and handcrafted in Italy.

Using steel, we developed a design that is a total object, a one-piece sculpture. The generous back with its elegantly curving ribs sits atop a swivel base that rests on four legs, each with a boldly curving profile.

Black Coquille Chair lit from the side in a dark studio, its thin steel frame casting a long shadow across the floor

Using steel, we developed a chair that is a total object, a one-piece sculpture.
Close-up of the curved steel ribs, dark seat shell and boldly curved leg of a black Coquille Chair at sunset

A detail of the curved seat and the boldly curved leg

We ace the base

There were many technical challenges in developing the design, which were solved with great ingenuity by Lensvelt R&D and the skilled artisans of the Italian manufacturers. Not least the extreme degree of bending needed for the uniquely shaped legs – requiring holes to be punched in them, which were later refilled. Getting the legs right was the key to the design.

Visually they extend the flowing form of the chair body into a single, infinitely flowing line. The upholstered seat then sits in the center of the chair, like a pearl in an oyster.

Coquille Chairs and their reflections in shallow water at sunset, a woman in a long black dress between them, evoking Botticelli's Birth of Venus

Inspired by the classic painting of Botticelli's Birth of Venus
A row of Coquille Chairs in purple, blue, white, black, red, coral and green lined up on a white plinth

Coquille is available in every color imaginable

A worker in a protective suit and respirator powder coating Coquille Chair frames in bright green in the spray booth

The base and seat are powder coated

Modernist models

The original model for Coquille was the classic modernist bent wood and rattan bistro chair. How could we interpret this icon design for the present time, adapting its natural lines and intuitive, organic form? Our partner in this project, Lensvelt furniture company, was mindful of the pandemic and wanted a chair that could be used outdoors as well as inside. This preference for versatility suggested tubular steel – a material loved by modernists since Marcel Breuer. Of course, the shiny reflective metal also echoes the fluid quality of water – perfect for giving form to our shell chair.

Quote from designer Maarten Diederix describing a chair as a test run for designing bigger things
A craftsman handling bare steel Coquille frames in the workshop before powder coating
Underside of a purple Coquille Chair, showing the decorative openwork pattern in the swivel base plate

The underside of the chair has a special design

Quote from Nanne de Ru, founder of Powerhouse Company, saying a chair is a character that should provoke a feeling

Why architects love chairs

With a fine collection of architects’ chairs of our own, it was inevitable that Powerhouse would produce their one day. After all, every architect want to design a chair. Why? Probably because a chair can  so perfectly distil the essence of an architect’s style. A chair brings the work to a wider public, and it creates a uniquely intimate relationship with those who use it.
Coquille, like Powerhous' buildings, is classical yet innovative. It sculpts space using a modernist vocabulary of proportion, scale and geometry, which it adapts in a fresh and contemporary way. It’s a perfect fusion of form and function, and it has a powerful presence. It is simply elegant. More than just a chair, it’s a kind of microcosm of a Powerhouse Company building.

About Powerhouse Company

Powerhouse Companyis an award-winning architecture office based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Founded in 2005, it has grown into a multidisciplinary office of around 100 professionals, with international studios in Beijing, Oslo, and Munich. Prizes include the Dutch Design Award, the Maaskant Prize and the AM/NAI Award.

Close-up of the black legs of a Coquille Chair meeting still water, the sharp bend mirrored in the surface
Detail of a white powder-coated Coquille seat, showing the organic cut-outs of the cast underside and the rib ends
Coquille Chair in light blue seen in profile, showing the curved wire back and splayed swivel base, on white
Coquille Chair in cobalt blue seen from the front, its wire-rib shell around an upholstered seat on a white background
Light blue Coquille Chair seen from the front on white, its steel ribs framing a pale upholstered swivel seat
Cobalt blue Coquille Chair at a three-quarter angle, its wire-frame shell above a splayed steel swivel base
White Coquille Chair seen from behind at a laid table with a red banquette and a tube-light installation on the wall
White Coquille Chair at a set table by a pink banquette in Putaine restaurant, Rotterdam, with the waterfront outside

Coquille chairs as used at Putaine restaurant & bar in Rotterdam

Dark Coquille Chairs at candlelit tables along a red banquette, under a wall of angled tube lights in the restaurant
Hans Lensvelt with Nanne de Ru and Maarten Diederix of Powerhouse Company. Coquille Chairs in many colours. Photo: Casper Rila

Hans Lensvelt (CEO Lensvelt), Nanne de Ru (founder Powerhouse Company) and Maarten Diederix, designer Powerhouse Company. Photo: Casper Rila