The Pacific chair lining the corridors of Apple Park. Photo: WSJ
If I asked you to name a few common technology products, office chairs probably wouldn’t make the list. The act of sitting down is such a fundamental human activity that chairs are often overlooked entirely, and rarely thought of as technology. Yet, sitting has quietly become an art in itself. The engineering behind a chair can make or break your productivity and its design can compliment or ruin the appearance of room. Multiply that factor by 12,000 – the number of employees expected to occupy the new Apple Park campus in Cupertino – and suddenly choosing the right chair becomes vital.
With that in mind, upon hearing that Apple – with guidance by Jony Ive – had picked Vitra’s Pacific Chair as the seat of choice for one of the most creative workforces on earth, I knew I had to try one out myself.
Like most office chairs, the Pacific’s height is adjustable, but seat depth, backrest height, seat tilting, and backrest support can also be independently changed.
When designers Jay Osgerby and Ed Barber first began working on a new office chair for Swiss furniture maker Vitra, they probably never envisioned the thousands of seats that would eventually canvas Apple Park, neatly nestled behind nearly every desk. Yet, the chair and the campus itself feel designed in tandem, as if architect Norman Foster’s blueprints hung on the wall side by side with sketches of the seat.
The first thing I was struck by when seeing the Pacific in person was how intensely modern it looks. It’s not a 1950s cigar-smoking executive chair. It’s not a Rube Goldberg-esque ergonomic contraption covered in levers and knobs. And it’s certainly not the contemporary recliner-on-wheels that fills the cubicles of so many offices today.
My biggest reservation with the Pacific is that it almost feels closer to a showroom piece than office furniture. I found myself tip-toeing around the chair, taking extra care not to scuff the polished arms.
Instead, the Pacific radiates a kind of quiet elegance – even in name. Its design is active in a way that feels relevant to a modern lifestyle. The chair is built for the way people work today, but without the visual noise of its contemporaries that I’ve always considered so visually offensive. More than once, I found myself just looking at it.
Vitra offers a dizzying array of configurations of the Pacific. Three different models offer low, medium, or high backs. The chair’s armrests (available in either fixed or adjustable configurations) and frame can be either light or dark, aluminum or plastic. You can choose between two types of casters for the base. Seven different materials can cover the seat and backrest, each in a variety of unique and striking colors.