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Stand up from a meeting and the chair stays pointing wherever you last turned. Luxy lists an accessory for Light that settles it: a self-returning swivel gas lift. The seat rotates 180° to the right and 180° to the left, then comes back into line by itself. Luxy offers it on one configuration, the padded Light with the medium back and the plate mechanism. A row of them looks the same when the room empties as it did when it filled: that is our reading of the part, not a claim by Luxy, and it is the reason to ask for it.
Everything around the lift is the standard Light, designed by Luxy R&D and made in Lonigo (Vicenza): a frame in round high-strength steel tube, with arms and five-star base in die-cast aluminium. It is a swivel executive office chair by birth, and Luxy's brochure also photographs the padded version doing a second job, as boardroom and meeting seating drawn up in numbers along a table.
Light is a family, and the base divides it. On the five-star swivel base it comes with a high or a medium back, in mesh, with thin padding or fully padded, with arms or, on the medium back, without. On the sled base it keeps the medium back and the same three upholsteries, for visitors and long tables. Beam benches seat two to five. La Mercanti asks whether the room is reset between meetings, and by whom, before suggesting which chairs should take the self-returning lift.
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Yes. Luxy builds Light as a beam bench for two, three, four or five people. The seats are the mesh ones or the ones with thin padding, with arms or without, and the structure is chromed. Two accessories belong to the benches alone: a pair of legs for fixing the beam to the floor and a small black table that is added to the bench on its own bracket. For the buyer the point is continuity: the bench carries the same seat and the same chromed metal as the chairs, so one collection can be specified across more than one kind of seating.
From Lonigo, in the province of Vicenza. Luxy S.p.A. has its address there, on the Strada Provinciale Almisano, and the design is signed by the company's own team, Luxy R&D. For anyone writing a specification this shortens the chain of questions: the people who drew the chair and the people who build it answer from the same company.
Luxy's brochure gives the mesh series a sentence the other two do not get: this is the version that interprets the name of the collection, its lightness and the harmony of its design «to the fullest». The mesh is self-supporting and covers back and seat alike. Luxy adds that it helps breathability. If the name is what drew you to the chair, this is the series to look at first; the two padded ones answer a different wish, for a cover that can be removed.
All the metal you see. On the chromed Light the steel frame is chromed, the die-cast aluminium arms are chromed, and the five-star base is polished rather than painted. Luxy carries the logic down to the floor: the gas column is chromed on this version (it is black on the painted ones) and so are the castors. The sled base comes chromed too, and the beam benches are made with a chromed structure. One finish from arm to castor: nothing has to be matched afterwards.
Luxy's brochure shows one case: offices in Brussels where the meeting rooms are furnished with Light in its padded version, chosen with both the high and the medium back. The reference is Luxy's own, published as a short caption and two photographs. What the pictures add is the look: black and brown chairs on polished bases around pale wood tables. For a buyer it settles one doubt, and this is our conclusion: two back heights of the same chair can share a room without looking like two orders.
A Light enquiry is complete when it names six things. Luxy's range fixes the options for each, so the list can be filled in at a desk and sent as it stands, with nothing left to guess.
Light exists in three series and the number says which: 14000 is mesh, 16000 has thin padding, 18000 is fully padded. Write the series before anything else, because Luxy's coverings depend on it: Batyline mesh in black or white for the first, fabrics and leather with a removable cover for the other two.
The high back stands 107 to 120 cm (42 1/8 to 47 1/4 in) and Luxy makes it on the swivel base with arms. The medium back, 84 to 97 cm (33 1/8 to 38 1/4 in) on the swivel chair, is the one that also exists without arms and on a sled. State which, and how many chairs of each.
On five spokes the chair rolls on castors and takes one of three mechanisms: the gas-lift plate, the relax tilt or the multiblock tilt; the high back takes the last two. The sled stands at a fixed 84 cm (33 1/8 in), so for it this line of the enquiry is already filled in. Keep one line per base.
Luxy casts the arms in aluminium in two shapes, open or closed, and finishes them chromed or painted. The medium-back chairs can also be ordered without arms, swivel or sled; on the sled that brings the width from 58 cm (22 7/8 in) down to 50 cm (19 3/4 in). Say which shape, or say none.
Choose one of eleven finishes for the structure: chrome, or ten paint colours running from white and black to mustard yellow and olive green. Then describe the floor. The rubber-tyred, self-braking castors are supplied for hard floors as standard and for carpet on request, and their colour follows the base: black, white or chromed.
