Ideas growing wings – the WiChair as an artistic metaphor for the freedom of thought and creativity

Where do good ideas start? Not by standing idle, that’s for sure. Or in an ordinary office chair’s rigid confines either. Ideas require nurturing. They need room to breathe. And sometimes, they need wings.

Wilkhahn’s showroom in Vienna’s Ankerbrot factory is currently featuring an installation that captures this very moment. It’s not just a showcase. It’s an intervention challenging intellectual stagnation, initiated by our partner Supertisch from St. Pölten in Austria.

The Wilkhahn WiChair takes center stage. But it’s not just immobile. It’s taking to the air. Artists mäck one and Oliver Kramer teamed up to create a setting where urban street art energy meets the visionary spirit of flight. Minus hierarchies and boundaries – but in a state of harmony, which lifts the chair out of its familiar context.

The installation plays with the poles we move between every day:

• The base: A solid wooden crate that underpins everything. The reality that any flight has to start from.
• The supports: Graffiti-strewn panels that carry the vision to the skies like urban atlases.
• The flight: An ocean of paper planes on the floor, a sky of light-blue umbrellas on the ceiling.

With two WiChairs in the middle. One’s on the floor, surrounded by paper planes. The second is mounted on a diving board, up in the air and equipped with wings. The WiChair is buoyed up by the very wealth of thoughts and ideas. It’s therefore a metaphor for the freedom offices frequently lack. The freedom for sedentary people’s minds to remain agile and encourage their creativity to grow wings.

Artist Oliver Kramer sums up the idea behind the installation: “Wood. With hard-as-steel suspension. And Einstein-like ideas in your head. Thought paths from A to B. And with imagination as your compass.” 

To us at Wilkhahn, this project is way more than just an artistic happening. It’s a call for greater flexibility. Because design needs to do more than just fulfill a purpose. It must surprise us. It has to move us.

The WiChair is the physical pledge of this approach. It shows that a chair is more than just a place to sit. It helps us adopt versatile thought patterns to remind us every day that freedom and creativity require agility.

The installation is on display until Easter for anyone who wants some inspiration. A brief pause in front of the showroom window might suffice for your own thoughts to take off.

Former Anker bread factory
Absberggasse 27, 1100 Vienna
Austria