Belt Chair is a minimal chair created by Berlin-based designer Hayo Gebauer. A single wooden chair stands in a corner, its form deceptively simple until you notice the aluminum armrests—thin strips that curve with unexpected fluidity, catching light like silver ribbons frozen mid-motion. This is Studio’s Belt Chair, where the familiar warmth of beech meets the cool precision of raw aluminum in a conversation about support, craftsmanship, and materiality.

The Berlin-based design practice has created something that speaks to both tradition and innovation. The chair’s beech structure provides the foundational grammar—solid, reliable, with the natural variation and warmth that wood has offered furniture makers for centuries. But it’s in the aluminum “belts” that Studio introduces a compelling dialectic. These elements reference the textile traditions of weaving while translating them into metal, creating a visual and conceptual tension that animates the entire piece.

“We were interested in that moment of transition,” a studio representative might explain, “where the rigid becomes fluid, where structure becomes gesture.” This transition is precisely what gives the Belt Chair its distinctive character. The aluminum components don’t merely serve as armrests; they narrate a story of material transformation.

The chair builds upon a rich history of modernist seating that explored the expressive potential of bent materials. From Thonet’s steam-bent wood to the Eameses’ molded plywood experiments, the Belt Chair acknowledges these precedents while pushing forward. What’s particularly noteworthy is how Studio has avoided technological showmanship—there’s nothing unnecessarily complex in the construction. Instead, the focus remains on intelligent material dialogue.