Stool Model "Djinn"
Manufactured by Airborne
France, 1965
Metal, Upholstery

Measurements
72 x 58 x 40h cm
28,3 x 22,8 x 15,7h in

Provenance
Private collection, France

Literature
Kathryn B. Hiesinger and George H. Marcus, Landmarks of Twentieth-Century Design: An Illustrated Handbook, New York, 1993
Airborne: le design made in France 1945-1975, Pierre Deligny, Éditions Les Modernistes, Paris, 2012
Mobilia, mars 1965, n°116, similar model illustrated on the cover

Details
This chaise longue is named after the supernatural djinni (genie) of the Koran. It became particularly famous after furnishing the futuristic rotating Hilton in Stanley Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Olivier Mourgue created undulating, low-slung seating for both home and office environments, experimenting with color and material as well as flexibility and disposability (zip-off nylon jersey covers could be changed by season). He grew up in a Paris apartment filled with Empire-style antique furniture, which he detested. "Furniture like that has nothing to do with life," he proclaimed in 1965. "One is never at ease in such rooms." Ease, achieved through groundbreaking form, became a hallmark of Mourgue's work. He trained in Paris as well as Finland and Sweden and by his mid-twenties was recognized as an innovative—even shocking—leader in furniture design.

Biography
Olivier Mourgue born in 1939 in Paris, and he is well-known for his furniture design, but he is also a painter and landscape designer.
Olivier Mourgue studied interior design at the ‘Ecole Boulle’ and furniture design at the ‘l’Ecole Nationale Superieure des Arts Decoratifs’ in Paris graduating in 1960. Additionally, Olivier Mourgue trained from 1958 to 1961 in Finland and also in Sweden where he worked for Maurice Holland, Nordiska Kompaniet in Stockholm.
Olivier Mourgue worked with the French manufacturer ‘Airborne International’ (located in Montreuilsous-Bois, France) from 1963. At Airborne, Olivier Mourgue designed his well-known classic Djinn chairs (1965) made famous by ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ by Stanley Kubrick. Stanley Kubrick created a futuristic rotating Hilton hotel in Space. In it, the Djinn chairs received their lasting moment of fame. The Djinn chairs feature a wave-like, low-slung silhoette. Olivier Mourgue named the chairs ‘Djinn” which In Muslim legend, a spirit often capable of assuming human or animal form and exercising supernatural influence over people. Stanley Kubrick destroyed all the sets and props of ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, afraid that they might fall into the hands of lesser directors.