An American Classic – The Acton Stacker®

An American Classic – The Acton Stacker®

American designer Hugh Acton designed the Acton Stacker® stacking chair for American Seating in the early 1970’s. This was early days for seating design in general and the compact stacking chair. In fact, another American designer, David Rowland, had only invented the compact stacking chair in the 1960’s with his famed 40/4 chair.

What was and remains amazing about the Acton Stacker is its remarkable relevance almost 50 years after Hugh Acton’s original design was introduced. The Acton chair remains a favored choice of newly designed and built facilities, including theatres, and other public venues like large congregation churches. We might ask why?

There are really 3 overriding reasons for the continued relevance, indeed preference, of the Acton seating line, including the original Acton Stacker:

Amazing Comfort – We do not give much thought to seated comfort in 2021, but wow, does it matter and only gets noticed when we fidget while seated and wake up the next day with pain! Hugh Acton’s mid-century modern design is deliciously comfortable with or without upholstery. Mr. Acton’s design is so comfortable because of a confluence of a concave shaped lumbar supporting seat back and a waterfall seat that rises in the back adding more back support still. This is the perfect chair for a comfortable multi-hour sit.

Perfectly Compact Stacking and Storage – The Acton Stacker stacks as many as 26 chairs high without upholstery, 16 high with upholstery and 5-6 high on the floor. Its specially designed cart fits through a standard door, into a passenger elevator and occupies only 32.5 cubic feet when stacked 26 chairs high.

Integral Ganging – Most facilities today for fire safety purposes mandate ganging for rows of stacking chairs. As any facility manager will tell you, how the chairs gang matters! Acton chairs gang together with steel fittings that are part of the chair. They are easy to attach, do not break and are low profile in appearance.

Some would say that Hugh Acton perfected the compact stacking chairs. Added to this, PS Furniture brings American manufacturing to this American compact stacking classic. We doff our hat to Hugh Acton and thank him for this slice of perfection. The Acton Stacker.