A metallic grey chair with a triangular back column and a circular leather seat and lumbar support in beige leather

The chair consists of a triangular column that forms the backrest and a rectangular base that forms the seat. These two elements are connected by a slender bracket. A tubular cushion attached across the backrest forms the lumbar support, while a round seat cushion covers the base. This cushion is set off-centre on a concealed swivel plate, allowing the relationship between the lumber support and the seat to vary according to the desired sitting position, hence the name ‘Moveable Chair’. It sits on castors.

Jane Dillon designed and built this chair as part of her Furniture Design Masters at the Royal College of Art in London (1965-1967), under the tutelage of Professor David Pye. As a starting point for this project she studied the structural principles of Rietveld’s Red Blue chair (1918) and also studied early Chinese furniture displayed at the Victoria & Albert Museum. She was particularly interested in how Chinese furniture featured narrow back panels taking the shape of the spine when siting in an upright position. Inspired by these two different forms of furniture Dillon attempted to reduce the design of a chair to two elements – the seat and the back – and the interplay between them.

Dillon considered the Moveable Chair a functionalist experiment. ‘The chair only becomes ergonomically correct when a person sits on the seat and leans back. When this happens the lumber support, being attached to the back, swings automatically into place central to the spinal cord at lumber height when sitting at an upright position,’ wrote Dillon about the chair.

Jane Dillon, nee Young (b.1943) is a British designer and artist who has made significant contributions to furniture and lighting design. Her work encompasses contract and domestic furniture, lighting, textiles and glassware.

She studied design at Manchester College of Art and continued her studies in furniture design at Royal College of Art (RCA) in London between 1965 and 1967. Between 1968 and 1971, Dillon worked at Olivetti in Milan under Ettore Sottsass. She later founded her own studio, Charles and Jane Dillon Associates, in London. And later set up Dillon, Wheeler, Van den Broecke.

For over 30 years, Dillon taught design at the RCA and was made an Honorary Fellow in 2007. She donated her complete studio archives to the V&A in 2009.

W.16-2021