Tag: Po Shun Leong

Fortune Cookie Stool

In Europe and especially in The Netherlands (internet browser) Cookies are subject to opt in nowadays…oops have to adjust Our Rules of Engagement (done in the meantime…I even haven’t a clue what cookies are…)

Anyway, luckily Po Shun Leong created the Fortune Cookie Stool to alleviate this burden on us poor bloggers and I found this photo I took of the stool at 2011 IMM Cologne back to share it with you.

About Po Shun Leong

He was born in the UK in 1941, studied at the Royal College of Art, School of Sculpture, London in 1958, with Prof John Skeaping, but transferred to and received his Diploma Cum Laud at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, UK. His studio is in Winnetka, California, USA.

Update

As per the comments this is not Po Shun Leong’s stool, but Shin Azumi’s AP stool for La Palma….

Below a photo of Po Shun Leong’s real Fortune Cookie Chair:

Update September 6, 2026:
Po Shun Leong appears having written to my contact page on September 25 2012:

About DESIGN SIMILARITIES: Dear Guido: I want to thank you for publishing some words about the Fortune Cookie Stool a few months ago. After I entered the Japanese company’s Tendo Furniture Competition in 2008 with this stool and many others designs, I visited their webpage and was taken a back in seeing in their catalogue a dining chair that was almost exactly like one that I had made over thirty years ago. Initially designed in Mexico where I lived, this was my first design entered into the American Daphne Furniture Design Competition (the Oscars of furniture) after moving to Southern California in 1981. It was awarded First Prize as a dining chair in 1982 and published in 80 USA newspapers and magazines. It was first manufactured in the Phillipines and then copies by various worldwide factories, the last known one being Tendo, the original make of the famous Butterfly stool> I complained to Tendo and when asked who “designed” this chair, they responded: “I am sorry. This (company) doesn’t make the designer public unlike the Butterfly stool etc. Eventually they removed the image from their website but I was able to keep a hard copy of their original image and catalogue onto my computer. So those incidences of copying thirty years ago put me off designing furniture and instead to make art objects which fortunately turnd out very well for us. I returned to designing furniture a few years ago, that immediately lead to the Fortune Cookie/ vs AP stool affair. Best wishes, Po Shun Leong

Last edited by Guido J. van den Elshout on September 6, 2026 at 16:40 hr