Designers Made Chairs For Star Trek & ‘2001’

Two designers of futuristic furniture, whose daring works were separately featured in the films 2001: A Space Odyssey and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, died within weeks of one another last month.

The deaths of Danish designer Steen Ostergaard, who died October 13 at age 90, and French designer Olivier Mourgue, who died October 5 at 87, were confirmed by the New York Times today, with the outlet running separate obituaries.

Ostergaard’s contribution to sci-fi decor was Admiral James T. Kirk’s white and black Model 265 President lounge chair that featured prominently in Khan and had made an appearance in at least one episode of the original TV series. In the 1982 film, the plastic, sloping chair was meant to be a 20th Century antique owned by William Shatner’s Kirk in the 23rd Century.

In the film, DeForest Kelley’s Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy relaxes in the chair while visiting Kirk’s apartment.

Ostergaard, who also contributed furniture for James Bond films, famously used plastic in his ’60s-era furniture that gave the pieces a modernistic pop art style. In addition to the President’s chair featured in Star Trek, he was known for, among others, his 1967 A-Line Model 290 stackable plastic chair whose twisty appearance gave the piece a somewhat melting look.

Ostergaard’s President’s lounge chairs could also be found right here on Earth at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Ostergaard died October 13 at a nursing home in Harlev, a suburb of Aarhus in eastern Denmark.

Mourgue’s chair design for Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 2001: A Space Odyssey was perhaps even more eye-popping: A memorable scene set in a Hilton hotel located on Space Station 5 was built around the visual impact of a stark white hotel interior dotted with Mourgue’s bright red “Djinn” chairs that vaguely resemble alien creatures (or, to the designer, form-shifting genies) in their curvy, serpentine style.

Mourgue was sought out by Kubrick himself for 2001, the director having seen the designer’s work featured in a British magazine. A pink Djinn lounge had already been used in 1967’s James Bond spoof Casino Royale. The Djinn, located in the bedroom of the character played by Ursula Andress, gets the spotlight when Peter Sellers uses it for some post-love-making push-ups.

Mourgue died October 5 at his home in Plouguiel, France.