Thanks to the disciplined playfulness of its products, Artifort has established itself as one of the relatively small number of design-conscious manufacturers. For more than 40 years this Dutch company has exhibited admirable consistency in both its low-key profile and its product line, despite having derived much of its organic expressiveness from the Pop era.

Its designs are amorphous, colourful, and entirely independent of short-lived trends. The French elegance of Pierre Paulin fit harmoniously into the product range. This is one designer who has never succumbed to the temptation to achieve superficial effects, even in his more daring designs, such as the Mushroom or Ribbon chairs. Also noteworthy are the structured geometric works by the Dutch designer Rene Holten and the Apollo chair by the French designer Patrick Norguet.

The C 683 sofa by Kho Liang Le and Chaise Longue by Geoffrey Harcourt are classics from the late 1960s and early 1970s. In the context of these Artifort products, even the minimalist designer Jasper Morrison felt inspired to produce something unexpected: the Vega chair, with its cartoon-like playfulness. Its name alone reveals the fusion of Pop exuberance and Artifort’s ascetic Dutch Puritanism, as evident in the restrained design of the chair’s metal frame.