Trinidad Armchair

When designing the Trinidad Chair in 1993, Nanna Ditzel found inspiration in the elaborate fretwork from the Gingerbread Facades that she had seen in colonial architecture while traveling through Trinidad. Much like the facades, the cut-out fretwork of the chair triggers an interplay of light and shadows, creating a pattern projected into space and a subtle sense of motion.

Designed in 1993 by Nanna Ditzel, the Trinidad Chair was inspired by the intricate fretwork of Gingerbread Facades seen in the colonial architecture of Trinidad. Departing from Modernist ideals that rejected ornamentation, Ditzel made decorative cut-outs the defining feature of the chair, using CNC technology to carve the curved plywood shell with a level of precision previously unseen in furniture design. These perforations not only create dynamic light and shadow play but also reduce the chair’s visual weight, resulting in a striking, lightweight form that was considered a technological breakthrough at the time.