This tradition-steeped firm, which began as a locksmith’s and metalworking shop, mainly develops office chairs – one of the showcase disciplines of the German furniture industry and one in which the people of eastern Westphalia have decades of experience. As early as the 1920s, long before the topic or even the word “ergonomics” had impinged on public consciousness, Drabert built a tubular steel swivel chair whose form took into consideration the anatomy of the human body and the demands of workaday life. The Reichspoststuhl of 1928, known as RP 28 for short, one of the first office chairs to be designed down to the last detail, is a prototype for its genre, a chair that could once be found more than three million times furnishing German post offices. When choosing the groundbreaking materials – tubular steel and bent plywood – the influence of the justdawning Bauhaus movement certainly must have played a role, while on the other hand the company had already been producing furniture out of tubular steel itself since the turn of the century. The 1950s brought further innovations. The 4 K office chair (1954 by Egon Eiermann) boasted the first infinitely variable height adjustment, while the Manager (1958) was the first chair with a movable backrest. Finally, the tilting backrest in connection with a special seat mechanism in the Senior chair (1960) brought a further advance in office comfort. The idea of a “back-friendly” chair allowing for active sitting began to take shape. Drabert subsequently caused a stir again with its SM 400 plastic chair (1968 by Gerd Lange), whose body-fitting form set the standard that is still followed today. Later on, tip-proof wheels (1970), synchronous tilting mechanisms and single-lever operation (1975) were introduced. In the 1990s the company became a subsidiary of the Dutch Samas Group, Europe’s leading office furniture manufacturer, and is now devoting its energies not only to the ergonomically designed workplace, but also to the field of communications, with furnishings for training and conference rooms as well as for waiting and common rooms. Recent office chairs such as Entrada, Salto and Cambio (all by Daniel Figueroa) underscore the design-oriented approach. The conception of the award-winning seminar and conference chair Tosila (2004 by Büro Staubach) was based on the results of a recently completed medical study called “Mikromotiv” conducted in conjunction with European research institutes and thanks to which the company was able to demonstrate anew its proficiency in the field of ergonomic sitting.