We talked to new SCP designer Magnus Long, to find out more about Archer, the cantilever chair he has created for the SCP 2025 Collection.
We talked to new SCP designer Magnus Long, to find out more about Archer, the cantilever chair he has created for the SCP 2025 Collection.
Can you give us a little background to this project?
This project began because it’s one hundred years since Mart Stam designed and assembled the first cantilever chair and also because Sheridan started SCP by selling PEL tubular steel furniture under license, and he has a great affection for the typology. My first chair design in 1999 was a cantilever chair whilst at university, so it was nice to be asked to design one for the first time since, and for SCP.
The notion of looking backwards to understand where we are now is appealing because I see it as a way to contextualise ourselves as designers building on what’s gone before, but more broadly to reflect on where we have arrived technically and emotionally through product identity.
It’s rare that a specific typology of furniture can so clearly be traced back to such a defined moment and I thought about why the cantilever chair came about one hundred years ago. From a material perspective, steel tubing had been around for a while, but cold-drawn tubing had been invented in the late 1800s. It was stronger than ever in terms of its ability to withstand cyclical stress. So the Bauhaus designers had this incredible material to play with and a purpose to make industrially produced furniture. At this collision point the first cantilever chair was born. There is this brilliant chain of connections in the history of science, arts and technology that lead to this type of chair being made possible.
What is the name of your design?
Archer. We had some back and forth over the name, but I like the connection to both the idea of an arc and to the idea of a bow.
Bow is the name of an early shelving design by Matthew Hilton for SCP, so there is a nice connection there too. Can you describe the design in simple terms?
It’s a supportive cantilever chair made in tubular metal with a plywood seat and backrest. It has a nice amount of spring and comfort to it. The design has a number of semicircular forms which tie together visually. When looked at from above, there are three aligned arcs – the foot, seat and backrest.
What was the inspiration or thinking behind the design?
My first ever chair design was a cantilever chair in 1999. It was for a friend who wanted somewhere to snuggle into and I designed a low-to-the-ground tubular stainless steel chair with a sling seat and big cushion. You could flip it up against the wall and put the cushion behind it to save space when not in use.
The material elegance of the cantilever chair is fantastic – fundamentally it’s a single line of tube which becomes stronger simply by being formed. From that you get a giant spring which gives a soft, floaty bounce from a reduced frame. It is a typology of furniture where the material opportunities and constraints immediately became apparent in a way I haven’t experienced before.
I wanted to maintain the iconic S-line of the tube whilst reducing the boxiness that sometimes comes from so many small bends. There are a number of ways to bend the tube at the foot and after some play with different formats I kept coming back to the long, semicircular arc. I found that the arc wanted to repeat itself in other places too and it fell into place – visually, structurally, and economically. Even though it feels more luxurious, that single large arc is as production friendly as two tight corners.
Due to the continuous line of the tube, it terminates right at the point that you often notice first – the rear of the backrest. So we found a way to form the tube using a similar rounded motif, while reducing the diameter of the tube to make it that bit lighter in appearance.
I wanted the design to have an embracing backrest, so that you have both the light bounce and also a feeling of containment from the chair. To a large extent, the mechanical properties of the material and the forming technology have guided the form of the design.
