Antony Limited Edition 2025: the technical elegance of Jean Prouvé revived in a modern design icon

7 July 2025

In 2025, Vitra introduces the Antony Limited Edition, a refined, numbered reissue of the iconic chair designed by Jean Prouvé in 1954 for the Cité Universitaire in Antony, just outside Paris.

This edition perfectly embodies Prouvé’s vision of design as applied engineering—an impeccable synthesis of function, aesthetics, and industrial production. Crafted with a waxed European pine shell and a metal frame in Rouge Corsaire, the 2025 edition celebrates the timeless design legacy of Jean Prouvé.

A master of industrial design

Jean Prouvé (1901–1984) never considered himself a designer, but rather an engineer of design. His career spans a vast array of projects, from everyday objects to modular architecture, all unified by a profound coherence between aesthetics, function, and industrial logic. Whether designing lamps or prefabricated homes, Prouvé’s approach was rooted in structural clarity, material honesty, and production feasibility.
Over the years, he developed a unique and innovative design language that continues to resonate today—balancing engineering precision with expressive form. Designed in 1954, the Antony chair stands among the final pieces in his furniture oeuvre, and perhaps one of the most emblematic, thanks to its formal purity and technical expressiveness.

The story of a distinctive silhouette

The Antony chair was originally conceived for the student residence at the Cité Universitaire in Antony, in the southern outskirts of Paris, in the early 1950s.

Its design was driven by two essential requirements: durability and functionality, paired with an aesthetic that reflected Prouvé’s technical, rational approach.

Even today, its silhouette remains striking: a gently curved wooden shell, almost floating, rests on a metal base formed by two steel sheet legs joined by a transverse tubular support. The lateral brackets, which embrace and support the shell, echo the structural solutions previously adopted in the Compas Direction table. The result is a composition that balances structural solidity with visual lightness—strength with restraint.

In 1984, Rolf Fehlbaum, Chairman Emeritus of Vitra, discovered a vintage Antony chair in Paris. That encounter sparked a dialogue with the Prouvé family, which eventually led Vitra to begin producing a curated selection of his furniture starting in 2000. The Antony chair was the very first of Prouvé’s seating designs to enter the Vitra Design Museum collection, which now houses over 7,000 pieces.

Antony Limited Edition 2025: a tribute to material and color

Now, in 2025, Vitra unveils a limited-edition reissue of the Antony chair—true to the original spirit yet enhanced by finishes that elevate its character.

The seat shell is made from European pine, with its organic grain and irregularities highlighted by a protective wax treatment that brings warmth and depth to the wood. In contrast, the metal structure—legs and brackets—is finished in the original Rouge Corsaire powder coating, one of the most distinctive shades in Prouvé’s signature palette.

Each piece of the Antony Limited Edition 2025 is individually numbered and available through December 2025.

A timeless object, a legacy that lives on

The Antony chair distills Jean Prouvé’s philosophy at its purest: a seamless fusion of engineering, design, and industrial production that transcends time and trends. With this limited edition, Vitra pays tribute not only to an iconic form but also to a design vision that remains as relevant as ever.A collector’s piece, a design lover’s treasure, and a tangible link to the legacy of one of the great masters of 20th-century design.

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