Local Local’s Parrot Chair leaves the telephone behind

Parrot Chair beneath trees in an Athens courtyard

Local Local has designed the Parrot Chair for Greek furniture maker Sirigos, drawing on a compact telephone seat from the company’s archive. Made from unvarnished maple, the chair keeps the older piece’s boxy proportions while removing the shelf that once supported a telephone.

The project is the Athens practice’s first collaboration with an established furniture brand, following bespoke pieces made for its architectural commissions. Founder Sofia Xanthakou developed Parrot for A Century and a Year, Sirigos’s initiative marking its 101st anniversary. The manufacturer was founded in Athens in 1924; the studio dates the chair to 2025.

Parrot Chair beside stored timber — © Lorenzo Zandri

A seat without the telephone

The starting point was an everyday piece of domestic furniture. Known affectionately as a “gossip seat”, the telephone chair combined somewhere to sit with a surface for the device. It occupied hallways and living rooms, giving a fixed place to conversations that could continue well beyond the call.

Parrot removes that specialised function. Its compact wooden frame can stand alone in a bedroom or living room, or join other chairs around a table. The reference survives in the scale and character of the object, rather than in a shelf retained after its purpose has disappeared.

Parrot Chair and low table on a display platform

The photographs show a rectilinear frame with slender arms and green upholstered seat and back cushions. The pale timber and dark upholstery make the components easy to distinguish, while the open sides keep the chair’s outline light.

Side view of the Parrot Chair on a display plinth

Joinery left visible

Traditional joints remain exposed in the unvarnished maple frame. According to the studio, the construction uses no screws. The timber is left untreated so that its grain and tone can change through use, making ageing part of the object’s appearance.

Exposed maple joinery and green back cushion of the Parrot Chair — © Lorenzo Zandri

Parrot Chair in a furniture workshop — © Lorenzo Zandri

“Where we often start by listening to a site’s history, the Parrot Chair began with listening to an archive, and to a piece of everyday Athenian life that had quietly slipped out of use,” Xanthakou says in the project’s press statement.

Sofia Xanthakou with the Parrot Chair — © Lorenzo Zandri

The chair’s social role becomes more apparent when several are placed together. Arranged in pairs or small groups, they provide somewhere to sit close, talk or share food. A form once tied to a single communication device becomes a seat for the less predictable conversations of a room.