Wegner started work at the studio of Arne Jacobsen during WW2 and worked with him on the Arhus town hall. He established his own studio in 1943 and since then made over 500 different chair designs, most of them in wood. His approach to design was to reduce the chairs to "pure construction" while maintaining an elegant, sculptural shape. Wegner's greatest sales success came with the Round chair from 1949, inspired by Chinese styles. The chair rose to stardom when used in the final TV debate between Nixon and Kennedy during the 1960 US presidential election and has since been known simply as "The Chair". Like Jacobsen, Wegner was a perfectionist but while Jacobsen sometimes could draw his designs on the back of an envelope and leave it to the manufacturer to sort out the construction, Wegner made very precise large scale drawings, showing every join and bend. "In buying furniture, one should hold the pieces upside down, for if the underside is okay then the rest is probably okay too," Wegner once said.