MoMA Learning

The Honey-Pop Armchair, a blend of old and new technology, is made of wafer thin sheets of paper similar to the kind used in Chinese lanterns. The paper is rolled and then layered into a honeycomb-inspired design to give the delicate paper a strong structure. The chair is packed and shipped folded flat, like a lantern. Once peeled open, accordion-style, it accepts the impression of the body of whoever first sits on it. The honeycomb cells in the outermost layer compress and become a skin that shapes the chair’s final form. From the side, the shape of the chair derives its design from the shape of the sitter’s backside.

Yoshioka’s concept was born not from the idea of creating a specific form but from a desire to experiment. He has explained that, in his work, “a concept [is] often inspired simply by the desire to use new materials or processes.”¹