Chairs: Icons
Raghu Yadav
| 11-01-2024
· Lifestyle team
The chair, a seemingly mundane household item, is the most fundamental object in human history.
Despite its ordinary appearance, this piece of furniture has garnered love and attention from countless masters, serving as a canvas for design evolution and technological advancement.
Imbued with rich humanistic values, the chair has evolved into a symbol of changing design styles and progressive technological development.
One notable example is the "Red and Blue Chair" (Rood blauwe stoel), designed in 1918 by Dutch master Gerrit Rietveld. A three-dimensional representation from the early Dutch stylistic movement, this chair, later gifted by American architect Phillip Johnson to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, stands as a permanent exhibition.
By extending stylistic aesthetics into three-dimensional space, Rietveld's creation imbues the red and blue chairs with highly cubist symbolic characteristics, presenting a distinctive expression with a robust personality.
Moving back to 1900, we encounter "Miss Langston's Tea Room High Back Chair," commissioned by Catherine Cranston and designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh. The chair was part of the tea room's interior design, combining simplicity, nobility, and elegance.
The dramatic verticality of the space is accentuated by tall windows and towering siding, with high-backed chairs lining the tea table like guardians. The decorative details, including arching cutouts and subtle curvatures, soften the overall hardness, showcasing Mackintosh's attention to form and function.
The "Wassily Chair," born in 1925 under the design prowess of Marcel Lajos Breuer, marks a milestone in avant-garde design. The world's first steel-tube leather chair symbolizes the twentieth-century steel tube chair and sets a precedent for modern furniture.
Breuer's creation, influenced by modernist thinking at the Bauhaus, represents a fusion of art and function, pushing the boundaries of traditional chair design.
Le Corbusier, Charlotte Perriand, and Pierre Jeanneret collaborated on the groundbreaking "Corbusier Recliner/Chaise Longue Chair" in 1928.
This epoch-making piece skillfully combines stainless steel and leather, perfectly balancing rigidity and flexibility. Recognized as a "comfort machine," the chair boasts an ergonomic design, ensuring optimal support for every point of the body when reclining.
In 1929, German designer Mies van der Rohe introduced the iconic "Barcelona Chair." Despite its bulkiness, this chair has earned a place in numerous museums. Mies van der Rohe, the third rector of the Bauhaus, coined the famous design principle "Less is more." The Barcelona Chair reflects this philosophy, embodying a sleek and minimalistic design that transcends time.
These chairs collectively narrate a story of design innovation, each reflecting the ethos of its era. From Rietveld's cubist symbolism to Mackintosh's fusion of nobility and simplicity, and from Breuer's avant-garde steel tube design to Mies van der Rohe's "Less is more" philosophy, these chairs not only serve as functional pieces but also as artistic expressions of their time.
In essence, the evolution of the chair mirrors the evolution of design itself, showcasing how this seemingly ordinary object can transcend its utilitarian purpose to become a symbol of human creativity and progress.
Continuing the exploration of iconic chairs, the design narrative unfolds with the "Red and Blue Chair," an embodiment of Dutch stylistic movement's early period. Gerrit Rietveld's visionary creation seamlessly integrates three-dimensional space, giving the chairs a distinctive, cubist aesthetic.