Jean Prouvé

A metalworker by training, Prouvé designed furniture the way engineers design bridges: thick where the load falls, thin where it does not. His Standard chair of the 1930s has slim front legs of bent tubular steel and broad, tapering back legs of folded sheet steel, because that is where a sitter's weight goes when they lean back. His Nancy workshop made school desks, university furniture and office chairs that survived decades of hard use. Vitra now reissues many designs, and his metal-and-oak pieces are a lesson in why structure can be beautiful.