Steen Ostergaard, Space-Age Chair Designer for Star Trek and Bond, Dies at 90

Steen Ostergaard, the Danish designer whose injection-molded plastic chairs appeared in "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" and the James Bond film "The Spy Who Loved Me," died on Oct. 13 in Harlev, a suburb of Aarhus, Denmark. He was 90. His family announced the death, at a nursing home.

Ostergaard built his reputation on affordable furniture that solved problems stylishly. He designed almost everything that caught his interest — kitchen appliances, windmills, shoes, watches, firepits, a life-size chess set, and a bus shelter seen across Denmark. But he remains best known for one object: the Model 290, a cantilevered, stackable plastic chair that looked like sculpture and cradled the body like a sling.

Developed with the chemical company BASF in 1966 as the A-Line Model 290, the chair emerged from an injection mold (a process where molten plastic is pressed into a single shape) in 132 seconds, according to its manufacturers. It wasn't the first of its kind — Verner Panton had worked on a cantilevered plastic chair in the late 1950s, brought to market in 1967 — but Ostergaard's version led the wave of designs seen as embodying the future.

Where did his furniture actually show up?

Hollywood found it first. The Model 265 President chair, a deeply inclined upholstered lounge produced two years after the 290, appeared as an "antique" in Admiral Kirk's 23rd-century San Francisco apartment in the 1982 film "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" — Dr. McCoy sinks into it with a drink, boots up on the matching ottoman. An armchair version of the 290 turned up in the 1977 Bond film "The Spy Who Loved Me," with Roger Moore in the role.

Real-world clients had their own logic. In the 1970s, NASA furnished the Johnson Space Center in Houston with President lounges, according to his daughter. The Fairfax County jail in Virginia, which opened in 1978, put Model 290s in its cells and communal rooms for a practical reason: the legless chairs couldn't be broken apart and used as weapons.

His daughter, Sanja Ostergaard, said her father was indifferent to the screen cameos. She learned of the "Star Trek" appearance through an online fan site.

What does his career tell us about Danish design?

Ostergaard took an unconventional path through it. Born on Dec. 21, 1935, in Faaborg on the island of Funen, he apprenticed as a cabinetmaker and woodcarver before enrolling in 1957 at Copenhagen's School of Arts and Crafts (now the Royal Danish Academy's School of Design). In 1960 he won a Designmuseum Danmark competition for the Jubii 500, a steel-frame sofa and easy chair.

After graduating, he could have joined Hans Wegner, Borge Mogensen, Poul Kjaerholm or Finn Juhl. He chose Juhl in 1962, after military service. Juhl taught him that "furniture should not merely be visually appealing; it must also be comfortable and functional," Ostergaard recalled in a 2025 interview with the Danish magazine Vital. The Copenhagen Cabinetmakers' Guild named him designer of "the furniture of the future" while he worked there. He opened his own studio in 1966.

"I think he figured out he could do fine by himself," his daughter said.

A 1970-75 collaboration with Finnish designer Poul Cadovius's company, Cado, manufactured several designs, including the 290, renamed Cado 290. He also created the Wall-Hanger folding chair, designed to hang on a wall, and the Add-It, a tool-free modular bookshelf.

Is the work still in production?

Yes, and the revivals keep coming. Nielaus reissued the Model 290 as the Modo 290 in 2013. Last year, CB2 introduced new versions of a 1960 leather armchair (Boks), a 1981 tufted leather armchair (Ripple), and a 1983 white-lacquer storage cabinet. This year, CB2 released a modified reproduction of a 1962 barrel-backed armchair.

Ostergaard married the architect Ina Buchhave, whom he met at the Juhl studio, in 1969; she died in 2020. He is survived by their daughter Sanja, a fashion and interior designer; their son Tim, an engineer; four grandchildren; and a brother, Finn. He cared for his wife after her Alzheimer's diagnosis in Harlev, and kept designing to the end.

"I just went to the patent office two weeks ago," his daughter said recently, describing her father's latest idea for a new way of making chairs. "It's still a secret. I still need to find someone who would want to produce the thing."