Acrylic has not been overly popular for some time, although recently California-based designer Alexandra Von Furstenberg has taken a keen interest in the material: see her limited edition Lucite Desk and Bullet Coffee Table. On the other coast, New York’s Laurie Beckerman is also intrigued by the clear stuff. Her Butterfly Chair is made of ¾”-thick acrylic. The lounge chair looks part arachnid and part mathematical problem: a set of intersecting planes, mostly shaped like half moons, Butterfly Chair adds up to something grand.

Butterfly Chair. Designed by Laurie Beckerman.

Clearly, Acrylic is Making a Comeback

The clear material filters light, making Beckerman’s chair prismatic—a quality that gets intensified by all of the chair’s facets. The seat is a circle folded in two; the back is a half-circle cut in two sections; and the front legs are a quarter circle cut into two sections—each part of Butterfly Chair diminishes by half. It reduces its own measurements exponentially. The effect is one of complexity, as the eye tries to visually divide or multiply until it can see the piece’s numerical design. Butterfly Chair gets its name from the chair’s appearance when viewed from behind: the back supports create a pair of outspread wings, like a butterfly in flight.

About the designer: Laurie Beckerman is a Brooklyn native who graduated from New York University with a degree in anthropology. She later went on to earn a second bachelor’s from Pratt Institute—this time in architecture. Working as an architect, Beckerman drafted templates for stone carvers who were working on the façade of the Jewish Museum. This piqued her interest in “the craft of carving,” which then led to “her desire to become a furniture designer when she carved her first table out of stone.” Not long afterwards, Beckerman moved on to less classic materials such as acrylic, though her draftsman’s eye has never disappeared.