Introducing Simplex, Oscar Tusquets' Latest Chair

Simplex began with a clear ambition: to create a chair that could move easily between environments while remaining lightweight, stackable and reduced to only what was necessary. From beginning to end, the project was approached as an exercise in reduction. Every line, joint and material had to justify its existence. For Tusquets, simplicity was never the absence of decisions. If anything, the opposite was true: the fewer elements a chair contains, the more precise each decision becomes.

For Tusquets, the challenge lies in the number of demands placed on a chair. It must be structurally sound, comfortable to sit in, durable enough for everyday use and capable of defining the character of a space. Simplex was no exception. Reconciling all of these demands while reducing the chair to its bare essentials became the central challenge of the project.

The result is a chair composed of remarkably few elements: a continuous steel tubular structure, a circular seat, and a precise system of connections. Its slender rear legs and suspended backrest create an unusual sense of lightness, making the structure appear almost weightless. Yet, achieving that lightness required extensive engineering. Reduced to only a handful of components, every connection became critical to the chair's performance.

One of the most complex parts of the process was resolving the chair's structural joints while preserving its visual lightness. Rather than hiding the welds, Tusquets chose to leave them visible, allowing the construction itself to become part of the chair's expression.

Yet all of this engineering served a larger ambition: creating a chair that was as practical as it was visually light. Tusquets imagined a chair that could move easily between cafés, terraces, hotels, restaurants and homes. In that context, stackability quickly became a non-negotiable requirement. 

The chair not only needed to stack, but to do so efficiently, occupying as little height as possible and without damaging the chairs beneath it. Unlike many stackable chairs, Simplex avoids visual heaviness. Space flows between the seat and suspended backrest giving the chair an almost transparent presence, whether around a table or stacked together. 

Perhaps no phrase better captures the spirit of Simplex. Its innovation lies not in formal complexity, but in how little is needed to achieve lightness, stability, and precision. What remains is a chair shaped by the discipline of removing everything unnecessary.

* Editor's note: Oscar's quotes have been kept in their original Spanish. His way of describing a project is often as distinctive as the designs themselves.