Harter Metal Furniture desk task chair, made by Jan Kuypers?

We picked this up at the Pembroke Value Village for $5.00. I have a major love/hate relationship with VV. For the most part it's all overpriced used Gap jeans, and I always get the feeling that the best stuff never hits the floor to begin with. But sometimes, either people are clueless of lazy and they put good stuff out.

Like this chair, it's made by Harter Metal Furniture Ltd., of Guelph Ontario. Harter's still in business today, and they have made some iconic pieces through their history. Jan Kuypers did a long stint working with Harter, and I believe he may be responsible for the great lines on this little task chair. I love the little ant arms that stick out, and the minimalism of the frame. It's got a nice metal back rest and it's super comfortable to sit it. I think it's one of our best finds since moving here. I have grand plans to respray the metal with another colour (any suggestions?, I'm thinking maybe teal, maybe flat black), and I'll get our resident upholstery expert, Sonya, to swap out the split brown vinyl for something more fun, maybe a suede, or some graphic print. For now, it's 'resting' in our basement. 

Jan Kuypers / Donald Strindley for Imperial Furniture chair set

Whoohoo, 1st post! Since Sonya and I moved to Ontario three & 1/2 years ago we been impressed with the vintage picking our new locale allows. We live in the far outskirts of cottage country west of Ottawa.

This chair set was acquired at one of our favorite west end Ottawa Salvation Army's for $10 for the set. Sonya spotted them with her sharp eyes (like always), and we liked the danish lines on them (especially the matching pair). Cheap and cool, they're ours! The upholstery looked redone, and the fabric was a new striped cottom velvet. Overall, a great score, we figured we might use the dining chairs and maybe we'd store the lounge chair in our basement graveyard.

It was once we got them home that we noticed the Imperial Furniture sticker on the base of one of the matching chairs.

Then I took a look in our trusted copy of Design in Canada: Fifty Years from Tea Kettles to Task Chairs and there was a picture of one of the chairs saying it was designed by Jan Kuypers for Imperial in 1953.

The book also indicted that the armed chair was likely designed by Donald Strindley, first head of the National Industrial Design Council, and son of the owner of Imperial.

We ended up selling these to a nice real estate agent from Ottawa this summer through Craigslist. He and his wife had acquired the full 1953 dining set for $500 and wanted another couple of extra dining chairs. 


We've managed to find a few more Imperial/Kuypers pieces this summer, 2 more lounge chairs, and a really cool metal task chair that I'm pretty sure Kuypers designed for Harter Metal Furniture. I will post pictures and stories of those chairs soon.