Never much cared for avant garde chairs myself. None of them look all too comfortable if you ask me, except mebbe the first one, though the arms could be better positioned.
^^ actually, i've sat on the last one, it is actually extremely comfortable. The black strips are leather, and they are positioned just where your back needs support. Very excellent design. Too bad the chair costs more than a new Mac
Don't recall #1 exactly. It could be an Eames office chair, maybe a later work of the 1960's?
#2 is the XYZ chair by Gerrit Reitveld. I don't remember dates that well, but I'll say circa 1936.
#3 is the Wassily chair (named after Wassily Kandinsky) by Marcel Breuer. 1930's again, maybe '38? Might be a post-war chair, but I think it was designed not long after his barcelona chair of '33.
The Wassily chair is comfortable to sit in, just a pain to get out of since the seat is tilted back so far. Hint: never use this chair where old people gather.
and the third is indeed the Breuer 'Wassily' chair, from 1925.
The Rietveld chair, in particular, amazed me. I kinda think of 1918 as ancient history.. First World War, worldwide plague of influenza.. in some ways, that era comes off as primitive and brutal. And then we see this design, which would not be out of place in an avant-garde gallery today.
Yeah, 1920's and early 30's was the era of "heroic" modernism. Corbu and company started getting substantial commissions in the late 20s and got a lot of attention for competitions and larger works too. I'm surprised by the Rietveld because I thought he and Van Doesberg (sp?) were coming up after Cubism hit it big in the 1910's, and after even Mondrian started doing his super-abstract stuff on their tails. The 1920's and 1930's is one of my favorite eras for design and architecture. We studied a LOT of that stuff in school. You can hardly call it avante garde at this point though.
Here's the house the Rietveld designed the chair for:
I should have known the first one was Mies by the arm rests. I confused it with this Eames chair:
The Red Blue House was totally about form and space, a truly groundbreaking concept at the time....and if you look at today's Western design, something that still hasn't changed. Spaces that can be changed with partitions is just too wild for most people....unless they're Japanese.
Throw a Charles Rennie Mackintosh chair in there for goodness sakes, this IS a Mac forum after all.
damn... just saw this thread-- just my sort of thing! my parents have wassily chairs, unfortunately, the leather is getting a bit stretched and worn out. when i win the lottery, i will have a very large house, just so i can populate it with all my favorite chairs. yesterday, while at sfmoma, i became enamored with calla chair. really quite a beautiful work in fiberglass-reinforced polyester. i wish i could work with materials like that. but i am content with wood for now (my carpentry skills are poor enough that wood is currently challenge enough!)
George Kovacs floor lamps (I got two at a yard sale, believe it or not)
Roo: you should check out Phillipe Starck's stuff <a href="http://www.banaldesign.com/pschairs/pschairs.html" target="_blank">here</a> (warning, huge page). A lot of this stuff is available from <a href="http://www.dwr.com" target="_blank">Design Within Reach</a>. The name is a joke, but there's lots of nice *pricey* stuff there.
Roo: you should check out Phillipe Starck's stuff <a href="http://www.banaldesign.com/pschairs/pschairs.html" target="_blank">here</a> (warning, huge page). A lot of this stuff is available from <a href="http://www.dwr.com" target="_blank">Design Within Reach</a>. The name is a joke, but there's lots of nice *pricey* stuff there.</strong><hr></blockquote>
i love dwr! well, i love to look at it... its like porn for chair-obsessed-freaks like me. i go back and forth on starck's work-- sometimes i love it, sometimes it does nothing for me. though i love that gnome!
Hey! When did this start? Damn. I could have pegged them all (sans dates, I'm not very good with time). Ah well. Shame on me for spending time in Temp Insanity, it's nice to see a *normal* thread again, MacWorld always leaves me in a state like I've eaten too much chocolate. Yuk.
As far as Starck goes, I think his orange juicer is one of the biggest strokes of design genius ever.
OK, I'll admit I'm an unabashed furniture geek, but....I'm hoping that someone here can help me with a recent purchase I made that I honestly know nothing about. I bought a sofa, chair and side table that (I think) are simply wonderful. They're a little dinged and what not, but I'm sending them off to be touched up.
What they are: Fiberglass shell. White. Curved edges and corners. They all sit above the ground on about 8" of curved clear acrylic, about an inch thick. Brown leather upholstery (which I'm changing to...well, I don't know yet), side table has a piece of brownish curved glass inset about 1/4" into the top. Think: Egg Chair. I'm thinking that they might be 70's Steelcase, but I really don't have a clue at this point. Any help out there?
Comments
BTW, iKnow nothing, couldn't tell ya.
-robo
#2 is the XYZ chair by Gerrit Reitveld. I don't remember dates that well, but I'll say circa 1936.
#3 is the Wassily chair (named after Wassily Kandinsky) by Marcel Breuer. 1930's again, maybe '38? Might be a post-war chair, but I think it was designed not long after his barcelona chair of '33.
The Wassily chair is comfortable to sit in, just a pain to get out of since the seat is tilted back so far. Hint: never use this chair where old people gather.
[ 01-05-2003: Message edited by: BuonRotto ]</p>
The second is by Rietveld, from 1918 (!!!).
and the third is indeed the Breuer 'Wassily' chair, from 1925.
The Rietveld chair, in particular, amazed me. I kinda think of 1918 as ancient history.. First World War, worldwide plague of influenza.. in some ways, that era comes off as primitive and brutal. And then we see this design, which would not be out of place in an avant-garde gallery today.
Amazing.
-robo
I took a class once that dealt with this stuff. Plus, this girl who lives upstairs is really into furniture design.
j/k, i was just expecting many people to be surprised by the age.
-robo
Here's the house the Rietveld designed the chair for:
I should have known the first one was Mies by the arm rests. I confused it with this Eames chair:
] <a href="http://www.gemsinisrael.com/index000004872.htm" target="_blank">http://www.gemsinisrael.com/index000004872.htm</a>
] <a href="http://www.interart.co.il/bauhaus/index.html" target="_blank">http://www.interart.co.il/bauhaus/index.html</a>
[ 01-05-2003: Message edited by: zMench ]</p>
Throw a Charles Rennie Mackintosh chair in there for goodness sakes, this IS a Mac forum after all.
D
1904.
1867.
[ 01-06-2003: Message edited by: Hassan i Sabbah ]</p>
very old, too.
in the dining room:
Cesca
in the living room:
Eileen Gray adjustable table and
George Kovacs floor lamps (I got two at a yard sale, believe it or not)
Roo: you should check out Phillipe Starck's stuff <a href="http://www.banaldesign.com/pschairs/pschairs.html" target="_blank">here</a> (warning, huge page). A lot of this stuff is available from <a href="http://www.dwr.com" target="_blank">Design Within Reach</a>. The name is a joke, but there's lots of nice *pricey* stuff there.
<strong>
Roo: you should check out Phillipe Starck's stuff <a href="http://www.banaldesign.com/pschairs/pschairs.html" target="_blank">here</a> (warning, huge page). A lot of this stuff is available from <a href="http://www.dwr.com" target="_blank">Design Within Reach</a>. The name is a joke, but there's lots of nice *pricey* stuff there.</strong><hr></blockquote>
i love dwr! well, i love to look at it... its like porn for chair-obsessed-freaks like me. i go back and forth on starck's work-- sometimes i love it, sometimes it does nothing for me. though i love that gnome!
As far as Starck goes, I think his orange juicer is one of the biggest strokes of design genius ever.
[ 01-07-2003: Message edited by: 709 ]</p>
What they are: Fiberglass shell. White. Curved edges and corners. They all sit above the ground on about 8" of curved clear acrylic, about an inch thick. Brown leather upholstery (which I'm changing to...well, I don't know yet), side table has a piece of brownish curved glass inset about 1/4" into the top. Think: Egg Chair. I'm thinking that they might be 70's Steelcase, but I really don't have a clue at this point. Any help out there?
Thanks. G.
There some really cool new designs coming out of NEOCONN and i especially like the stuff from BRAYTON.
i know the designers there and they also have some stuff from Europe worth chedckng out.
<a href="http://www.brayton.com" target="_blank">Brayton International</a>
MSKR
We'll be moving to a new house this spring and I'm looking for some design furniture.
Any ideas, advise?
Last weekend we saw this and we fell in love because of its simplicity and design.
Is it any good? The red doors are made from glass and painted from the inside.
<a href="http://www.lago.it" target="_blank">It's from this italian designer.</a>
edit: ow, and I now nothing about design.
[ 01-20-2003: Message edited by: sapi ]</p>