The Modern Chair: Classic Designs by Thonet, Breuer, Le Corbusier, Eames and Others
192
The Modern Chair: Classic Designs by Thonet, Breuer, Le Corbusier, Eames and Others
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Overview
Each chair is described in detail with the aid of photographs, Mr. Meadmore's own explanatory drawings and some reproductions of the original designers' plans. The author also explores the ways in which the designers approached and solved inherent problems of function and aesthetics. The scale drawings in this book are all one-eighth of full size, allowing easy assessment of dimensions and visual comparison of size and proportion.
Many of these chairs are housed in museum collections; others are still being produced today. Now, this inexpensive edition of The Modern Chair enables students of furniture and any interested reader to make a thorough study of the most important chairs of modern times.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780486142692 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Dover Publications |
| Publication date: | 04/07/2014 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 192 |
| File size: | 20 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
Read an Excerpt
The Modern Chair
Classic Designs by Thonet, Breuer, Le Corbusier, Eames and Others
By Clement Meadmore
Dover Publications, Inc.
Copyright © 1997 Clement MeadmoreAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-486-14269-2
CHAPTER 1
Bentwood armchair Michael Thonet Austria, 1870
In 1840 Michael Thonet invented a process for bending wood which revolutionized the mass production of furniture. He soon established a range of bentwood chairs and other furniture running into hundreds of variations, of which the example shown here is perhaps the most elegant. His patented process consisted of clamping a thin flexible strip of steel along one side of a piece of steamed wood. This side, after bending, became the outside of the curve. Without steel, compression of the inner edge and tension on the outer would result in the outside cracking on the curve. This simple process enabled Thonet to use extremely tight structural curves, just as strong or even stronger than the wood in its normal state before treatment. Another result was the elimination of virtually all complex jointing in the construction, as elements could be lapped over one another and joined with screws.
The armless side chair, introduced in 1876, was chosen by Adolf Loos for use in his buildings. Le Corbusier, however, selected the armchair, and the two architects were said to have had an argument in which each accused the other of having chosen the wrong one. The side chair has certainly been the more extensively mass-produced, in fact by 1900 about 40,000,000 had been manufactured.
The beautiful curves of the Thonet chairs, dictated by the intrinsic qualities of the material, were echoed by the Art Nouveau movement in which the same plant-like curves were used; but Thonet preceded the Art Nouveau style by some forty years. Bentwood had been used since the 18th century for the backs of rural, craft-built chairs—typically the Windsor type—but only a rather strained and gradual curve was possible before Thonet's process. The patents ran out a few years ago on the original patterns, and now there are several manufacturers copying the designs and developing others which employ the same principles. There are certain tubular metal chairs, for instance the Armchair 12 by Poul Kjaerholm (p. 138}, that owe something to the general configuration of a Thonet chair, partly because the similar diameter and visual weight of the two materials dictate similarly appropriate curves. The Thonet chair uses wood expressively in its most natural-looking form, invoking the way it originally appears in trees—as a springy, pliant material supporting its load without resort to bulk and without strengthening joints. These chairs have been so widely distributed and have become so much part of our lives that it is difficult to judge them objectively. However, one can safely say that they are among the most beautiful man-made objects in our environment, and that familiarity never seems to detract from their appeal.
Colonial chair Designer unknown Mid-nineteenth century
This chair was originally designed to be used by British army officers in India. They needed a chair that was light in weight, could be folded up and carried around easily, could be used on uneven terrain without breaking and was reasonably comfortable. This was achieved by constructing the chair from a series of turned oak parts which were fitted into each other loosely and were not glued, being held together by a combination of leather straps and leather or canvas seat and back. The straps, arms, seat and back all acted under tension to keep the structure in place, while allowing it to adjust to uneven ground. The Colonial chair had no significant antecedents except early peasant rush seats which used round rods as stretchers which fitted into holes in the legs. The two classic derivations from this chair are Marcel Breuer's Wassily chair of 1925 (p. 41) and Le Corbusier's Basculant chair of 1928 (p. 61).
There are many variations on this chair made in different parts of the world, but most look rather weak in comparison with the original. The Colonial chair looks what it is, a strong, functional, work-horse of a chair, capable of roughing it out of doors and virtually lasting for ever. All its elements express their function perfectly - they are simple and direct. All parts are constructed at right angles, the angle of the seat is made by stretching the canvas or leather from front to back on two bars which are mounted at different heights, and the backrest is arranged on two pivoted strips of wood. All in all a very satisfying chair to look at, if not totally satisfying to sit in.
The design of these chairs was probably influenced by the colonial chair (see pages 40 and 60).
Tripolina Joseph Beverly Fenby England, 1877
This design was patented by Joseph Fenby, an inventor, in 1877. The chair was later manufactured in Italy as the Tripolina, and in the United States as the Gold Medal No. 4. This is a prototype from which a number of similar designs have sprung, notably the Hardoy chair designed in 1940 by the Argentinian architects Antonio Bonet, Juan Kurchan and Ferrari Hardoy.
The Tripolina's popularity with circus clowns and army officers on campaigns stems from its unsurpassed collapsibility—setting it up involves simply pulling it open and draping it with its seat/back sling. It is interesting that Fenby regarded his chair as an afterthought, and a stool with the same structure as having been his important invention, even though the traditional artist's tripod stool does the same job with only three pieces of wood and one connector. After a laborious description of the stool, Fenby's original patent refers to the chair as follows: For a camp chair four of the bars are made of an additional length so as to serve as a support for the back of the sitter.'
The earliest evidence of the chair's production in any great quantity is in 1895 when Gold Medal of Wisconsin began to make it. Apparently Fenby sold the rights to French and Italian manufacturers at about the same time. Although it is not as refined as later developments of the same structure, Fenby's design is still sufficiently slim and light to be a most economical lounge chair in terms of shape and materials. Moreover, its horizontal side members make it certainly more comfortable than the Hardoy, and easier to get out of.
The AA chair, designed by Bonet. Ferrari and Hardoy (also called the Hardoy chair), U.S.A.. 1938 Originally made by Knoll. U.S.A.. this design is probably derived from the Italian campaign chair and the Tripolina. but uses a metal frame with V shaped legs over which the leather sling is fitted.
The Tripolina folds compactly, the dog-legged frame fitting flat when closed.
Riemerschmid chair Richard Riemerschmid Germany, 1899
By the end of the nineteenth century the Arts and Crafts movement, and in particular William Morris, had revived simple, country-made chair forms, and brought about a taste for sophisticated but traditional forms. This chair, designed within the Art Nouveau idiom, follows Morris in its straightforward design and its return to classic chair forms, like those of the late eighteenth century, but it has far greater urbanity and polish. The chair was adapted and detailed by Edward Wormley in 1947, for the Dunbar Corporation, Riemerschmid himself approved the slight modifications to the chair, and complimented Wormley on his 'improvements in its form and comfort'. The chair was originally designed for the Dresden Exhibition of 1899. Richard Riemerschmid belonged to the Munich group which was part of the Jugendstijl movement.
This chair was one of his less flamboyant designs, although it clearly reflects the characteristic Art Nouveau feeling for natural growing forms, especially in such details as the flow of the arms into the back. The proportioning is beautifully worked out and even now the chair does not look dated.
Some of the more subtle construction details include the stepped-up thickening (for strength) of the side stretcher where it joins the back leg, and the way the armrests are laid on top of the supporting element, overlapping it by a small fraction and forming along the outer edge a thin line that flows up into the backrest. The Riemerschmid was created at the watershed of two quite distinct developments in design - those of Scandinavia and of Germany. It spans both traditions, and chairs which owe something to it can be seen in both groups. Richard Riemerschmid was an architect, and a designer of fabrics, glass and silverware, but he is mostly remembered for his furniture design. His contemporary, the architect van der Velde once said of him that 'each of his works is a good deed'.
This Riemerschmid chair, designed in the same year, shows a more original though less satisfying approach to structure. The diagonal brace triangulates both front and back legs and flows into the backrest with a typical but slightly dated Art Nouveau line.
Folding chair Anonymous Sailor c. 1905
This uncomfortable-looking chair is actually genuinely supportive in an unexpected way. The seat and back work like a pair of well-placed slings in which one sort of hangs in complete comfort and security. It is probably the smallest really comfortable chair ever designed and it was not even done by a designer, which may explain its totally unconventional approach to supporting the human body. It is also a very portable chair because it packs into the backrest, which is also a carrying bag.
Red-Blue chair Gerrit Rietveld Holland, 1918
Gerrit Rietveld belonged to the De Stijl movement between 1919 and 1931. The chief spokesman for this group of artists was the painter Piet Mondrian, who described their theories as an attempt to close the gap between art and life. Their essential principle was that there should be purity of all elements; purity of unimpeded horizontals and verticals, and primary colours with black, white and grey. The paintings of Mondrian's mature style which have so many similarities to the Red-Blue chair began to emerge about two years after the chair was designed, implying an exchange of influences and ideas. The Red-Blue was not in fact originally painted at all, but Rietveld included it in the Schroder House, where it was to be seen against very dark walls and a dark floor, which would have had a marvellous dematerializing effect on the structure as it is now painted.
The basic structure of the chair is black-stained bars which pass each other at right angles. These linear elements support two angled plywood planes, the back painted red and the seat blue. Rietveld's declared intention was to design a chair which anyone could afford, consisting of simple machine-cut elements put together with dowels and glue, and which depended in no way on expensive craftsmanship. He later designed a chair made out of packing-case timber, to be delivered in pieces and assembled according to simple instructions, by the purchaser. In spite of Rietveld's far-sighted ideas about the simplification and cost reduction of furniture making, the Red-Blue appears to be made solely according to aesthetic criteria, almost a sculpture or an architectural exercise: the functional aspect appears incidental. Rietveld himself is said to have complained of bruising his ankles on it, and a certain daring seems required actually to use the chair. The construction itself is very direct, and well adapted to mass-production.
Its dimensions are all based on a ten-centimetre module, so that the chair can be made without using complex working drawings. The colouring is also completely straightforward. The black-stained bars have bright yellow ends, which, as they are square or squatly rectangular, read as small planes. Against the dark floor, the chair would be seen as two large primary coloured planes surrounded by a multiplicity of small ones shimmering in space.
The Berlin chair Gerrit Rietveld Holland, 1923
In 1923 Rietveld and the De Stijl painter, Huszar, designed a model room for an exhibition in Berlin, Huszar planning the colour and Rietveld the furniture and layout. The Berlin chair was designed for this exhibit.
Rietveld has sacrificed anatomical considerations in order to produce what is virtually a De Stijl sculpture in an unlimited edition, with all the characteristic juxtaposition of planes in space and subtle differentiation of parts using various greys. It is strongly reminiscent of Mondrian's earlier paintings. The Berlin chair is unlike the Red-Blue both in its asymmetry and the predominance of planes rather than lines.
Structurally, all the parts add rigidity to each other, rendering the simple lapped joins perfectly strong.
Wassily chair Marcel Breuer Germany, 1925
Named after the painter Wassily Kandinsky, for whose home at the Bauhaus it was made, the Wassily has a most complex arrangement of parts, with thin strip-like planes intersecting and by-passing each other at various levels, supported by a broad tubular steel frame which describes in a fine shiny line the shape of a well-proportioned, stable armchair. This creates an effect of strength which is in fact borne out by the structure itself. The chair is visually very satisfying, and its rather intricate design works beautifully. The casual way in which the steel elements overlap and are bolted together at their connecting points is unique, and, together with the complexity of the structure, is probably a product of Breuer's pioneering attempts to use tubular metal to its full potential. He was primarily interested in finding out the possibilities offered by the use of such a visually fine material, and did not only use it for its strength. The legend runs that he was inspired to use tubular metal for furniture after contemplating the handlebars of a bicycle. Le Corbusier's swivel-backed Basculant chair (p. 61) is superficially similar, but makes an illuminating comparison with the Wassily, which is so much less straightforward in construction. One can indeed say, in paraphrase of it's designer's famous dictum, that the Basculant is a machine for sitting in. The Wassily, however, could never be so described. It is a welcoming and a beautiful chair, both aesthetically and physically satisfying.
Detail of the Wassily chair, showing the frame's structure. The parts of the frame are screwed to one another, the main pieces being joined half way along the floor bars. The leather is seamed in loops over the supporting elements, and the whole chair has a degree of flexibility, that increases slightly as the leather loosens with wear.
MR chair Mies van der Rohe Germany, 1926
This chair was designed at the time of the earliest use of the cantilever principle for metal- frame chairs. In this case the cantilever is directly expressed by the use of a half-circle at the front, acting as a curved spring. Even though all the lines in this chair are strictly geometric—a series of straight lines and half and quarter circles—the impression it gives is of a very graceful, springy, flowing form. The idea of the continuous line of side support becoming the base element along the floor, had a very far-reaching influence. In fact we have seen so many similar uses of tubular steel that it is difficult to appreciate the sophistication of this beautiful chair.
The MR was originally produced with a continuous seat and back of woven cane, either lacquered black or left its natural colour. Alternatively it was made with separate seat and back of leather, held in place with metal strips and bolts. This fixing was later modified to a complete wrap-around leather cover, laced together at the back. A version of the chair with arms was also made originally, which gave the chair the appearance of a closer connection to the Thonet rocking-chair shape. The arms curved from the back to join the main curve below its outermost point, and they accentuated the airy suppleness of the structure. The armed version seems much less stark, though the arms are unmistakably afterthoughts, and are not entirely satisfactorily connected to the main structure.
An original production model of the MR chair. (The metal has been painted at a later date) Originally, the chair was offered with either leather or cane seat/back.
In the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum. London.
The current production model of the MR chair with leather seat and back The lacing of the leather at the back and below the seat allows adjustment of the tension. It is still available in cane.
Tatlin chair Vladimir Tatlin U.S.S.R., 1927
Vladimir Tatlin was a leader of the Russian Constructivist movement, and the Tatlin is the only existing chair from this period. The example shown here is, as far as I know, the only production model since Tatlin's own prototype. It differs from the original in that the frame has been made in steel instead of bent wood, because of the apparent impossibility of producing a wood frame of sufficient soundness. Tatlin was deeply involved in the making of flying machines. He created great winged forms made out of literally bentwood skeletons, covered in canvas and occasionally reinforced with whalebone. His structures stretched the tensile and loadbearing capacities of the wood to the utmost, and clearly this chair is an adaptation of the principle learnt for these primitive exercises in aerodynamics—the flow of stress through load-bearing members from tight grouping to a wide splay.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Modern Chair by Clement Meadmore. Copyright © 1997 Clement Meadmore. Excerpted by permission of Dover Publications, Inc..
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Table of Contents
Contents
Introduction,Part 1 Classics,
Bentwood armchair,
Colonial chair,
Tripolina,
Riemerschmid chair,
Folding chair,
Red-Blue chair,
Berlin chair,
Wassily chair,
MR chair,
Tatlin chair,
Cesca,
Lounge chair,
Basculant,
Chaise longue,
Grand Contort,
Barcelona chair,
Tugendhat chair,
Brno chair,
Armchair 406,
Easy chair,
Zig-zag chair,
Landi,
Part 2 The Post War Period,
LCM chair,
Barwa chaise,
Dining chairs,
THE chair,
T chair,
Lounge chair 670,
Sheriff chair,
Panton stacking chair,
Armchair 19,
Armchair 12,
B-167-3 Lounge chair,
Sling chair,
Sofa,
Steltman,
GF 40/4 stacking chair,
Chair 932,
Chair 20,
Pastilli (Gyro),
Up 1 chair,
Plia,
Soriana,
Appoggio,
Biographies,
Manufacturers,
Index,