Herman Miller is rebuilding the Aeron chair from the inside out

When Herman Miller launched the Aeron chair in 1994, almost nothing about it made sense. Unlike other chairs of that era, it wasn’t made of leather or full of plush foam. Instead, its frame was exposed, its mesh was transparent, and it cost double what buyers expected to pay for an office chair. “Most ergonomic chairs have misunderstood the human form,” says Don Chadwick, who co-designed the chair with the late Bill Stumpf. Bill Stumpf and Don Chadwick in the early 1990s [Photo: courtesy Herman Miller Archives] Some industry observers had doubts about whether the Aeron would succeed. Those ...