seating

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Image features a white plastic chair molded in the form of a circular basket-type seat of flat branch-like elements on four thin cylindrical legs. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Vegetal Chair
In the mid-2000s, designers (and brothers) Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, came up with the concept of a chair that would “sprout up like a plant…with its branches gently curving up to form the seat and back.” They also took inspiration from historical seating, such as English cast iron garden benches, American chairs in the rustic...
Image features a cantilevered chair of ribbon-like form, made of natural brown laminated plywood; the front feet slightly raised. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
A Sinuous Seat
Probably best known for his one-piece injection-molded plastic design, the Panton ‘S’ chair of 1960, designer Verner Panton was sketching ideas for one-piece, self-supporting, cantilevered stackable chairs made of a single material as early as 1955. Panton’s 275 S chair is the first one-piece cantilevered chair made of molded plywood. It was among his entries in the 1956...
Image features an arm chair of irregular curved form composed of stacked thin contoured plywood sheets. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Slice Chair
Danish designer Matthias Bengtsson designed the Slice chair in 1998, while a student at the Royal College of Art in London. Exploring the relationship between high tech manufacturing methods and the hand-made, his creative process combined cutting-edge production techniques with craft. Bengtsson first modeled the curves and contours of this sculptural form by hand in...
“How High the Moon”
In his How High the Moon chair, designer Shiro Kuramata utilizes an industrial material, steel mesh, to give a contemporary interpretation to the traditional club chair. The shape and proportions are based on an established Western form—a bulky, deeply upholstered easy chair with a low back and deep arms—but here, Kuramata’s use of an unexpected...
Image features chaise in the form of a long, contoured, rectangular seat/back unit of woven strips on curved wood frame with four flat, angled and tapered legs. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Farm Fresh American Modernism
Edward Durell Stone, born in Arkansas in 1902, was an important proponent of the International Style in the United States, reconciling its crisp geometry and functionalism with American popular tastes. In the 1940s, however, his formalist aesthetic underwent a transformation following a cross-country tour that included visits to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin and Yellowstone National...
Image features walnut wood chair composed of concave backrest supported by two vertical curved rails flanking curved center splat; square webbed leather seat supported on splayed, tapering legs. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Eternal Style
The concept of “eternal” style is a bit of an oxymoron, after all, many of today’s producers and designers roll out new and improved models on a regular basis. Thinking about cars, phones, and electronics it is easy to fall prey to the idea that everything is expendable and that each new item is better...
Image features a woven chair printed in white ink on a black background, while an abstracted shadow of white squares floats behind it. Each woven area illustrated slightly differently; the splat of the chair has a wider, lattice pattern, while the seat has a tightly woven cane.
Lattice Lithograph
In 1946, the twenty year old artist Ruth Asawa entered the renowned, experimental Black Mountain College, where she studied for three years under mentors such as Josef Albers, Merce Cunningham and Buckminster Fuller. Born in California to Japanese immigrants, Asawa spent her childhood working on her family’s farm, until 1942, when the entire Asawa family...
Cast bronze side chair composed of flat disk seat on four straight cylindrical legs; back composed of cast bronze painter’s palette decorated with spirals; "crest rail" consisting of a horizontal rod, a headless figure below the rod, to left of palette, and six different sized heads sitting on the rod; three cast bronze heads situated between the seat and back, supporting the back, with a fourth head to the right. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
The Artist’s Chair
In celebration of Women’s History Month, March Object of the Day posts highlight women designers in the collection. The Oka chair, by Michele Oka Doner, is both a utilitarian furnishing and a highly detailed sculptural piece. The chair’s seat is a flat textured disk which rests on straight, unadorned legs. The back, where all the...
An Architect’s Touch
The Danish designer Arne Jacobsen believed in the artist’s complete control over a project. Though originally trained as an architect, he had a hand in all aspects of his buildings’ designs, including the interiors. His works might be considered examples of Gesamtkunstwerk, or the total work of art, because of his individual and obsessive control...
When the West Looks East
The Chinese Chair, designed by Hans J. Wegner and manufactured by Fritz Hansen Inc. of Denmark, represents a piece of Western furniture inspired by the design aesthetic of Eastern culture. Capturing the nature of Chinese furniture design, the chair features soft, sloping, and rounded armrests, giving the shape an organic quality. Made in cherry wood,...
Sitting on a Sustainable Cloud
The softseating stool is a collapsible form made of white, paper-thin honeycombed polyethylene sheets joined between two white cardboard panels that connect with magnets to form a cylindrical shape. When fanned outward and secured, the polyethylene sheets are sturdy enough to support weight, yet remain comfortable to the user. The stool is portable, lightweight, and...
A Sustainable Seat: The Alfi Chair
The Alfi chair is the product of a 2015 collaboration between British furniture-maker Jasper Morrison and American manufacturer Emeco. ­The chair’s simplicity expresses Morrison’s concept of “Super Normal” design, whereby objects are significant because of their everyday usefulness. The chair’s sturdy stance is in line with Emeco’s history as a manufacturer that prides itself in...
Expressing Materiality: The Stratum Chair
Ammar Kalo practices architecture and industrial design at his namesake studio in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. His work ranges from architecture, interior design to furniture. The Stratum Chair’s concept and appearance were driven by his desires to “express materiality” and to take advantage of new fabrication technologies. Kalo laminated plywood and CNC milled a complex path...
Flowing Form Blends the Man-Made with the Organic
The Enignum Free Form Chair by Joseph Walsh curves, swirls and ripples in a manner that is reminiscent of furniture from the Art Nouveau period, yet it is contemporary in its overall aesthetic. Joseph Walsh, a self-taught designer and builder, started working with wood at the age of eight, and honed both his woodworking skill...
Master of the Chair
Hans J. Wegner was a pioneer in modern Danish design in the 1950s and 1960s. Having designed more than 500 chairs throughout his career, with 100 of them being mass-produced, he has been affectionately known within the design world as the “Master of the Chair”.  His ingenious use of natural materials, in particular his admiration...