It is no exaggeration to claim that Citizen, the new chair designed by Konstantin Grcic for Vitra, will herald a small revolution in the world of office furniture. Thanks to its anti-conventional look, which follows today’s trend of more and more flexible and informal work spaces, it is a combination of a swivel chair and a chaise longue (in the high backrest version) or even a lounge chair (with low backrest), also suited to more domestic settings and uses. The revolution lies also and above all in the technical innovation, with a seat suspended from three steel wires (totally similar to slender and robust strings) fastened to an embossed steel tubular frame. The result is a chair that can move and swivel freely, increasing the comfort of the padded backrest. The frame – truly minimal and essential in structure – and cushioned elements come separate. Just as the Aeron chair designed by Bill Stumpf and Don Chadwick in 1994 for Herman Miller began paving the way for new ergonomic standards, Citizen is about to usher in a brand new way of sitting in offices.

What makes you happy about a project?
Konstantin Grcic: What makes me happy is a kind of creation, to create something. The creation is the result of a voyage of a process of discovery of learning, kind of applied experience and knowledge. It’s something I love and it makes me happy. I’d say the journey is the happiness and the day like today, when a thing is finished also makes me happy, but now I’m happy for all the other projects that are in the making. It’s really the journey of the work is my happiness.

When did you decide to become a designer and why?
KG: Probably by the age of 20-21 at the time I was training as a cabinetmaker, as a craftsman, that was something I wanted to do, but not knowing where it would have lead. I realised that the making of furniture was something that I wanted to go deeper into. Not so much in the making, but into the conception of a piece of furniture in relation to the manufacture production, which was not in the making myself by hand. Understanding from my knowledge knowing how to make it myself to the largest scale of production. It’s the age when you suddenly discover a lot of things. My sister at that time lived in Vienna. I lived in London. In Vienna there was that big Achille Castiglioni exhibition, she sent the catalogue to me, she thought I could be interested in and I think that something in that catalogue triggered me. It was the discovery of a profession which I didn’t have imagined before. Designers I knew at that time, they were all architects. Castiglioni was an architect but he was not practicing architecture. He became a designer and for me it was a real discovery. Then I decided to study design and I became a designer.

Do you have a routine in your own office?
KG: We have a lot of routines. We wrote a kind of manual of routines. I did it with my assistants. The routines that I think are important for running the office. I believe that a set of rules allows for more freedom than no rules. Running an office with assistants it’s kind of complicated working situation because we’re trying to create something. I think you can’t create that without a sort of parameters and boundaries. Boundaries ate not strong rules. They’re not negative. They’re just routines that kind of mean that you don’t have to think about them because they’re routines. For examples we all start at 9 o’clock, not before and not after. We leave at six o’clock, not before nor after. We don’t work at weekends. We have one hour lunch break. These are very simple rules. But it means that at 9 o’clock everybody is ready to start. It’s not we start and the other one is coming at ten or the other has already been there since eight. That creates an imbalance which is not helpful. It’s written, it’s a leaflet. I’m more relaxed knowing that certain things are set.

What is design for you?
KG: For me I would say design is life. That’s what it is. It’s very strange, very different from someone who says design it’s invisible. Design is something you feel. Design is life, it’s pushing, and it’s so important, we need it. The world we live in it’s we need to stay in a debate, we need to discuss and experience things, for me design is all. I’d say it’s something that is actually makes me be conscious, because it hurts me or it pleases me. All of these things. Something I feel strongly.