Yrjö Kukkapuro spent a career asking a deceptively simple question: what does it actually mean for a chair to fit a human body? Born in 1933 in Vyborg, he trained at the Institute of Industrial Arts in Helsinki and graduated in 1958, going on to become one of the most celebrated furniture designers Finland has produced. Almost every Finn has sat on a chair he designed, at a subway station, in a bank, at school, or in a library. His work for Haimi and later Avarte ranged from the sculptural fibreglass curves of the Karuselli to more stripped-back pieces that trusted structure alone to do the work. The Pressu belongs to the latter category.

Designed in the 1980s and produced by Avarte in the 1990s, the Pressu is not a chair that announces itself. It is a tubular chrome steel frame with a canvas sling seat and backrest, and very little else. There is no padding to speak of, no upholstered volume, nothing to suggest comfort in the conventional sense. And yet it delivers it. The sling conforms, the frame holds, and the proportions turn out to be considered in ways that only become apparent once you are sitting down. This was Kukkapuro's particular gift: ergonomic intelligence expressed through restraint rather than complexity.

The Pressu sits within a body of work that a collector once described as being like therapy to sit in. That description suits the Karuselli better than the Pressu, perhaps, but the underlying thinking is the same. Kukkapuro trusted the relationship between form and body, and he trusted it enough to remove everything that was not necessary. The Pressu is what remains when a designer has nothing left to take away.

Discover: Pressu Chair By Yrjö Kukkapuro