“My products must be useful to people,” said the Swiss furniture designer Willy Guhl. “At the center of my efforts, I put people and their living requirements. I want to improve their immediate environment.” Guhl initially trained as a carpenter, but he ended up applying to the Zurich School of Fine Arts, where he cultivated his interest in furniture design. In the 1950s, Guhl became part of the Neofunctional design scene with simple, elegant pieces, breaking into the spotlight in 1954 with his ribbon-like Loop Chair—a marriage of the organic and the industrial. Guhl was a teacher as well, and many of his students—Robert Haussmann, Kurt Thut, and Bruno Rey among them—became renowned designers. This retrospective celebrates the inventor of Europe’s first plastic bucket seat. —Elena Clavarino