Gloster

1992
2016
TWENTY FOUR YEARS SERVICE
THAT MAKES FOR A CLASSIC
Graduating from the School of Architecture in
Aarhus, Denmark in 1986, Povl Eskildsen is
Gloster’s longest serving designer. His first
meeting with Gloster was during a furniture fair
in Copenhagen in 1992 where he presented
the iconic Weston Folding Chair. Unlike other
folding chairs of the time, Povl had designed
the Weston with innovative lumbar support in
the back and using a different folding principle,
to keep the front of the seat visible when folded
and with a simple, integrated handle used for
folding and carrying the chair.
Following the success of Weston, which at its
peak sold over 20,000 pieces per year, in 1995
Povl went on to add the Madison collection -
the first step towards the low, lounge type
seating so evident today. In the same year Povl
designed Kingston - one of the first truly
comfortable and practical outdoor teak dining
chars. The idea was to make a lightweight arm
chair that both saved teak and also allowed
people to easily move the chair around. With
only a minor correction on the prototype, the
collection went into production and became an
instant success.
Povl’s ability to incorporate exceptional comfort
into his designs without compromising the
visual aesthetic, marks him out amongst his
peers. Using a design language of classic
Scandinavian inspiration with a contemporary
twist, Povl has gone on to design many other
collections for Gloster in both teak and mixed
materials over the past 24 years, racking up
more 50 trips to Gloster’s manufacturing site in
Indonesia in the process. For 2017, the iconic
Weston design has been brought up-to-date
within the Voyager collection, and further iconic
designs such as Dansk, Maze and Havana
continue Povl’s legacy into the new millennium.