Compared to chairs, design elements are more universal. The chair’s fundamental ability to support the body hasn’t altered much, but it has undergone innumerable interpretations that take into account shifting philosophies, materials, tastes, and technologies. Which has all combined to turn this useful household necessity—at its best—into a symbol of flair, artistry, and class.
Design historian Peter Fiell tells ELLE DECOR, “The chair is among the most designed, studied, written-about, and celebrated artifacts of the modern era.” And understandable, given that it provides a glimpse into our motivations. “You rediscover the world by studying the history of the chair,” Stine said. Liv Buur, Vitra’s manager of the classics collection, clarifies. We may learn from chairs that are still in use now as well as from chairs that date back thousands of years.
What makes a good chair?
Interior designers, museum curators, and design critics have all disputed this issue; there is probably no definitive answer to this subject. With that said, there are a few broad guidelines about what constitutes a decent chair. “A comfortable seat that lives up to its function and is sustainable within material, connections, and longevity,” according to Liv Buur, is what defines a good build. Beyond these factors, Fiell continues, a truly exceptional chair essentially provides a unique bond with its user. “There are many different kinds of connections—physical, psychological, structural, intellectual, contextual, ideological, emotional, artistic, cultural, and even spiritual.”
What makes an iconic chair?
Of course, there are countless ill-fated attempts that have preceded every truly excellent chair. Among these versions, several perches have made their own way beyond the copy and serve as examples of durable design and incredible creativity. Le Corbusier’s Machine Age Grand Confort LC2 armchair and Michael Thonet’s bentwood armchair are two examples of groundbreaking designs that belong in the hall of design fame, each for their own unique reasons.
Of course, there are countless ill-fated attempts that have preceded every truly excellent chair. Among these versions, several perches have made their own way beyond the copy and serve as examples of durable design and incredible creativity. Le Corbusier’s Machine Age Grand Confort LC2 armchair and Michael Thonet’s bentwood armchair are two examples of groundbreaking designs that belong in the hall of design fame, each for their own unique reasons.
What is the most popular chair in the world?
Although a single statistic cannot definitively answer this question either, the Vitra Design Museum maintains that the Monobloc chair is a strong contender for the title of world’s most extensively used furniture. A 2017 exhibition plaque concluded, “The Monobloc chair is the classic example of a mass-consumer product—it can be found wherever there is a need for affordable seating—be it in European gardens, African cafés, or Asian restaurants.” The Panton chair, the Bofinger, and Henry Massonnet’s Fauteuil 300, which the exhibition holds and is “regarded as the archetype of the inexpensive chair,” are a few examples of the plastic chair, which has been created by other designers who have shared the goal of creating a chair from a single piece of material.
Gaetano Pesce’s Up Chair
1969 is the year
Created by: Gaetano Pesce
Origin: Italy
The Up chair idea came to the late Italian designer Gaetano Pesce in 1968 when he was taking a shower. “I was holding the sponge,” he said to Architectural Digest in 2017. “The sponge shrank when I pressed it, but it returned to its original volume when I released it.” His creation of the pop-up polyurethane chair, a line of “Up” chairs with a rounded, sculptural form and a single piece of polyurethane foam, was influenced by this image. Versions of it, created over half a century ago, may be seen in design museums all around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Similar to any statement piece, the “Up” chair
Queen Anne Side Chair
1983 is the year
Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown created the Knoll design.
Origin: City of New York
One of the pioneers of postmodernism is the American architect Robert Venturi, whose Queen Anne side chair—a joint project with his spouse and creative collaborator, Denise Scott Brown—made a substantial impact on the movement. A Queen Anne chair from the eighteenth century was given a flattened appearance in bent plywood by Venturi and Scott Brown. The piece’s “Grandmother” pattern is inspired by a mass-produced flowered tablecloth that belonged to an employee’s grandmother. The chair, which pokes fun at consumer society’s need to feel connected by fusing references to high and low culture with historic and modern designs in a signature PoMo fashion,
Emeco Navy Chair
1944
The creator is Wilton C. Dinges
Original source: Hanover, PA
The Navy chair, or Emeco 1006, is an aluminum chair that Wilton C. Dinges, the founder of Emeco, created in 1944 in association with the Aluminum Company of America (ALCOA). When it was first designed, the U.S. Navy warships needed a chair for their battle deck that would withstand torpedo blasts, water, salt, and sea air in addition to sailors. Welders melted scrap metal in 77 steps (!) to create the strong, lightweight (about seven pounds) frame, which vastly outperformed the navy’s requirements. In an attempt to secure the naval contract, Dinges is said to have thrown the chair out of a Chicago hotel’s eighth-floor window to prove its robustness. Though it bounced
The Thonet 209, popularly referred to as the bentwood chair, is deserving of a spot in history books due to its widespread appeal as the prototypical restaurant chair and its emergence from one of the most important developments in the history of the modern chair. This chair was initially created for the Daum café in Vienna. It was made by Prussian-born cabinetmaker Michael Thonet, who was experimenting with new techniques of bending solid wood with steam and shaping it to shape with mechanical presses. Together with his five sons, Thonet founded a furniture manufacturing business in Vienna, where the chair is still made today. According to Fiell, 50 million of these chair models had been sold by 1930, making it the best-selling chair model ever. With its almost round
Look at the Wassily B3 Chair—the first cantilever chair that successfully broke the four-legged convention. In 1925, Hungarian architect Marcel Breuer unveiled the first tubular steel chair, inspired by the handlebars of bicycles. The German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and his Dutch colleague Mart Stam were experimenting with similar materials and exhibited their designs in public first at the Die Wohnung exhibition, but it was Breuer’s version—with its superior proportions and increased durability and comfort—that revolutionized furniture in the end. With only two legs providing stability and a cozy bounce, the abstract, sculptural chair marked a turning point in the development of modern furniture by allowing users to sit over the base and appear to be floating on air. After three years,
Look at the Wassily B3 Chair—the first cantilever chair that successfully broke the four-legged convention. In 1925, Hungarian architect Marcel Breuer unveiled the first tubular steel chair, inspired by the handlebars of bicycles. The German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and his Dutch colleague Mart Stam were experimenting with similar materials and exhibited their designs in public first at the Die Wohnung exhibition, but it was Breuer’s version—with its superior proportions and increased durability and comfort—that revolutionized furniture in the end. With only two legs providing stability and a cozy bounce, the abstract, sculptural chair marked a turning point in the development of modern furniture by allowing users to sit over the base and appear to be floating on air. After three years,