Legendary Skid chair: Memories and success story

Illustration of the VS skid chair first produced in the 1950s.

The Legendary Skid Chair – A Familiar Friend!

The wooden Skid chair from VS was not only used in almost every school in Germany, it also paved the way for outdoor teaching. Do you recognise it?

It’s been used for swatting, nattering and has been tilted back until it fell over. Class by class, children have engraved their names in its wood and tidily put it on their desks at the end of the school day. The wooden Skid chair has borne many generations through their school days. It triggers memories – only the screeching of chalk on a board is as evocative.

Black and white image of a school class on VS skid chairs in an outdoor seating circle

Black and white image of two boys sitting at a school desk and thinking

Best Seller with a Reforming Spirit

Around six million units of the likeable chair was sold between 1952 and 2006. This makes the Skid chair one of the most successful and longest living products in post-War history. You can see at first glance that today’s design classic was like a free spirit moving into German schools in the 1950s.

After World War II, the school desk was finally outdated — also for political reasons. Arranged in rows, it represented an outdated Prussian-military educational style. A reorientation was necessary. And that’s when the runner chair from VS came just in time.

Portrait of the architect and designer Karl Nothhelfer, who designed the skid chair and table as well as the VS administration building

Skid Design by Karl Nothhelfer

Putting the school day on four legs instead of two was the idea of the then managing director of VS, Falk Müller. The finished design was supplied by the architect and internationally renowned furniture designer Karl Nothhelfer. The patent was filed in 1950 and the first sled chair was produced in 1952. The design caught on – because the skid construction offered key advantages over the competition.

The wooden skid chair by VS seen from four perspectives

Two wooden skid chairs were placed on an old wooden school bench with the piggyback function of VS

Legroom

In combination with the matching Skid table by Karl Nothhelfer, the Skid chair offered children more legroom than they had ever known before. It was pleasant when sitting and also made standing up and sitting down easier in the cramped post-War classrooms. The fact that so many chairs could even fit in a classroom was thanks to Nothhelfer’s slender chair design.

Black and white image taken 1950 of three children standing all together on a wooden skid chair by VS.

Stability

Hardly any chair has withstood so many endurance tests by children. The fact that the Skid chair lasts and lasts and lasts is, on the one hand, due to its special construction. The chair legs are located centrally on the skids. As a result, the load is almost optimally distributed in every sitting position. The connection of the wooden chair parts with dowels instead of the tenons which were standard until then. And: With tolerances in the 1/10 millimetre range, the manufacturing method was extremely precise.

Black and white picture of a boy putting a VS wooden skid chair on a skid table.

Portability

Although the Skid chairs were extremely sturdy, they were also light by the standards of the time. Children could put them on their desks themselves, i.e., hang the chairs with the seats on the desks. This “piggyback” principle made cleaning the cramped classrooms much easier. Even better: the children could carry the chairs themselves – for example, across the room to group them in circles. Or outside, to have lessons in the fresh air. Once again, the skids were superior to conventional chair legs. They never sank into soft ground, such as grass or sand.

Wooden skid chairs of VS in different pastel colours next to each other

A Classic

The Skid chair therefore anticipated something that is still true today: good school furniture doesn’t get in the way of teaching but can be used flexibly no matter how creative the method.

The Skid Chair in “Der Sendung mit der Maus”

Curious? This way!

Knowledge Corner

VS crew in matching 125th anniversary shirts at the VS Open Day

125 years of VS – how will we learn and work in the future?

“Asking questions, seeking answers, finding solutions.” When Managing Director Philipp Müller dives into VS’s history, he shows a refreshing lack of nostalgia. Looking back sharpens his eye for future tasks for this family-run furniture specialist. Thinking ahead, that’s what it's all about, as it has been for the last 125 years.