Twitter Chair Avatar Museum

2012-01-12T19:36:00.000-08:00

Ames Einn is the name of this chair from Icelandic designer Erla Óskarsdóttir. My usual three-quarter view shot of the chair is de rigueur, but perhaps a better view is the one from behind, where the seat seems to tongue up behind you and lick your spine. An early 90's graduate of design school in Copenhagen, the Reykjavik-born Óskarsdóttir has pieces in museums in the Netherlands and Iceland. I like the fluid smooth forms of her chairs - she specializes in seating design. See a rather heavy-weight webpage here with some good pics. I can imagine I'll have to revisit her collection for future chairvatars.

2011-11-28T18:17:00.000-08:00

Robo Chair from Luca Nichetto comes packed in a small box. The Venice-born designer was recently judged 'Young Designer of The Year' says this blog. A great reason to visit that link is the view of the un-assembled parts of the chair. You'll probably have to go to the Swedish showroom to pick one up. No, wait. You could probably pop around to the designer's studio at Porto Marghera, Italy.
Oh, save yourself the travel bill and just visit the designer's website. Some great eye-candy there. I quite like the simple chair designs there.

2011-09-18T14:04:00.001-07:00

Miesrolo Chair from Uros Vitas is a great exploration of tension and compression. Uros studied at the University of Belgrade and says that sustainable design is a key motivator for him. With a judicious selection of angles on the wooden staves, and a high-tensile-strength fabric band, the chair will either roll up in one direction, or form a shapely chair in the other. You really need to see the pictures in various states. The band along the 'outside' must be under a lot of stress in spots! If it let go, that would be quite a dramatic drop to the ground, but meanwhile, it's an awesome use of materials and a great illustration of basic mechanical principals.

2011-08-18T07:31:00.000-07:00

Oliver Becker Chair. This smooth design is the work of a commercial designer who came from a design school north of Hamburg, Germany He went on to spend almost two decades in Milan, Italy working on cosmetic packaging. No doubt that experience of designing for visual impact and creating a desire in the observer to touch the product inspired this graceful, smooth style. It's unclear if you can buy one of these or if it remains a concept, but it would be interesting to sit in, even if rather gingerly at first until you build confidence in the materials. Becker is back in Berlin now working as an independent designer and 3D artist.

2011-06-25T10:38:00.000-07:00

Simple, Stackable - Tom Vac Chair. A 20th century furniture designer, Ron Aram did his original art training in Tel Aviv, and London and is apparently a prof of industrial and furniture design at the Royal College of Art in London. His Tom Vac chair is a versatile indoor/outdoor stackable chair. I love the simplicity of the shape. The ripple in the seat looks like it would

be form fitting and comfortable, though I'm a bit uncertain about the hole placement. I like to have a chair back support my lower back well, though it looks a bit like you might feel like you're falling through the hole on this one. But without finding one to sit in, I wouldn't know! In the absence of a tester - I will pronounce this an attractive minimalist design worthy of immortality in my Chairvatar lineup.

2011-05-16T07:54:00.000-07:00

Nouveau Retro SpaceAge. A change of pace for the chairvatar gallery. Rather than classics from mid-twentieth century design, let's mix it up a bit and feature a funky design from Alberto Benedetti. He's a young designer from Verona via Milan, graduated from ID school in 2002. His Supernova chair has a feel of the 50's space-age aesthetic. It's one of those designs that I think you would sit on a bit gingerly at the start. The tapering vertical struts on the back are very thin, and I would double-check the finish of the supports in contact with the floor before I sat it on my hardwood, but I like the look, and definitely give it a try were I and my bum given the opportunity.

2011-03-22T14:43:00.000-07:00

First One Piece Chair. The Panton Chair by Verner Panton from 1960 is iconic in both its form and materials. It was the first mass-produced, one-piece chair, and has a decidedly sculptural feel to it. I saw a recent design program from BBC which touched on this creation, and described the challenges with finding a manufacturer. Many wanted nothing to do with it. Various materials were tried, and ultimately those used held up reasonably well, though many surviving units show crazing and cracking, illustrating that the design pushes the limits of the materials available at the time.

This chair is also the grand-daddy of all our modern one-piece patio chairs, so next time you're sitting on a restaurant terrace in a one-piece plastic creation, raise a glass to Verner.

2011-02-17T07:28:00.000-08:00

Eero Aarnio Subtraction. The Ring Chair introduced by Eero Aarnio in 2009 is a cool idea. Take his iconic 1966 ball chair, or more accurately his '68 bubble chair and remove the bubble.

You can see the thinking. There are materials available that can support the occupant without the ball's structure - so why not lose it? In my usual silhouette presentation, you get the effect quite well. There is even a clear version of the bubble chair that would probably look exactly the same at 100 paces. It's a great play on his original work.

2011-01-06T11:19:00.000-08:00

...and back to my friend Arne Jacobsen again now that xmas is over.

Still not tired of this chair, so we'll keep it around for a little while longer into 2011.

2010-12-22T11:09:00.000-08:00

It's Christmas again already? Well, here's a refresh of last year's Santa chair. Happy holidays everyone!

2010-12-12T10:54:00.000-08:00

Changing my posting approach here a bit, I'll post individual avatars perhaps, rather than lumped together.

Turning to Arne Jacobsen, Denmarks gift to the world of chair design. He created the important plywood and steel Number 7 chair as well as his slightly more famous 'egg' chair. This version of the Number 7 has the added cool-factor of the armrests, added while still retaining the stack-ability. This chair had a bit of bawdy fame in the context of the Profumo Affair. The chair was featured as the prop in a nude photo of the siren of the British political scandal, Christine Keeler.

Museum Continued 2009-10

2010-11-01T06:02:00.001-07:00

...cont'd from Gallery I collection below.

I wanted to showcase a craftsman-style chair and searched for just the right one. Stickley's "Morris Chair" fits it well. It's been copied and morphed in many ways, but this is the original idea. Simple lines and warm wood design made it a classic. He was inspired by the British Arts & Crafts movement he saw in the 1890's and he created several pieces of craftsman-style furniture - simple clean design that contrasted the more ornate Victorian furniture of the time.

This is a classic from a 1927 show, from the giant of architecture in the Bauhaus period, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Simple, slightly flexible and a good example of form and function perfectly wed together,

with simple lines and a timeless quality. Who'd of thought it was from over 80 yrs ago?

In honour of our first real snow of the season (Nov 2009), and still feeling a little sweaty from shovelling and snow blowing, I'm featuring this simple, forlorn, wooden dining chair covered in snow.

Continuing with the snowy theme, I thought I'd put a guest into a nice simple wooden armchair in honour of the Christmas season. He won't be around long, but thought I'd festive it up a bit.

Back to something snowy for the season, given the end of Christmas. Here's a snow covered Muskoka chair, AKA Adirondack chair. These things are pretty comfortable, really, but seem to be relegated to status as rarely used lawn ornaments. In fact, the few times I've sat in one, I've gingerly tested it for soundness first. They've often been subjected to a lot of weather, and may be ready to become a recliner... in the worst way possible.

I feel like I'm a little late in getting a new chairvatar up, so thought I'd get something from someone significant. Eileen Gray is a significant architect and furniture designer who created this piece, called "Transat" in the late 1920's She was largely ignored during her long life, but her work is certainly notable and as a woman in a male dominated profession she really excelled. More on her here.

Now, I don't actually own many of the chairs I've posted, but I've substituted the ball-as-chair avatar on the suggestion of @tgrevatt. I was in search of one of these poorly named 'stability' balls to battle my overly-long seated periods working at the computer. I don't know who the designer was, or who first thought of using what was surely intended as an exercise appliance as a piece of office furniture, but it's a neat idea. Thankfully the idea has been around for several years, so finding one at a reasonable price is pretty easy. I think mine was $15 at the local hardware/dept store.

Charles and Ray Eames were a couple who designed furniture through the from the 40's to the 60's and were responsible for many iconic designs that we all recognize, though likely few of us know of the design duo. Charles was architecturally inclined, and his wife Ray was trained more in classic fine arts, being a painter and film-maker. Their materials were often contemporary ones, rather than traditional. Formed plywood and fibreglass are
prominent in their iconic chairs. The one shown here is a variant of many of the plywood chairs. Their fiberglass bucket chairs are also well known to everyone. I'll have to use one of them in an upcoming avatar. There's a good Wikipedia article that covers way more of their history than I'll try to attempt here.

This is a good example of how I'm feeling just now. The Ku-Dir-Ka chair by Paulius Vitkauskas is a contemporary design and a study in contrasts. The core style of the chair is the epitome of rigid, functional, stable utilitarian chairs. But when you sit down and lean back, the chair moves. It's like a rocker, without the typical rocker elements. I can't help but wonder how stable it is. If you lean back will it go right over? Probably not, that back leg is a big angled, which would make a difference. It must audibly sound different than a typical rocker too. Fun idea. Looks like you can get one for about $650.

What!? I didn't realize I hadn't featured an Eero Saarinen chair before. The guy is a pillar of the Finnish design wave in modernist chairs. Here is his classic, iconic tulip chair. From 1956, like most modernist works, the materials dictated the art, and this was a testament to what was possible with the use of fiberglass-reinforced resin. I usually prefer to go totally b&w on the chairs, as I find it really accentuates the form. But as I thresholded the image, I liked the halfway point, and cleaned it up a bit. Plus, it lets you see the upholstered seat cushion a bit more than a pure silhouette.

It is mid summer just now, 2010, and after mowing the lawn on a slightly cooler day than we've had lately, I thought about the fleeting nature of nice summer weather. What better way to acknowledge that than with an avatar update! Well, I suppose a BBQ party and a bottle of good red wine might be a bit better than an avatar update, but it will have to do for now. Here's a familiar looking teak folding lawn chair. They're made all over the place, but I don't know who the original designer is. If I come across it (or perhaps a reader will send me a reference?) I'll add it here.

October 2010 - rather than continuing to append my chairvatars to a single list as I was originally doing, the new posts will appear above in a more conventional blog style. I kind of wanted to the present them in the order in which they appeared, rather than typical blog reverse-chronological order, but it's a bit awkward. So you'll see the new posts above as they arrive. :)

Museum 2007-09

2009-05-05T08:48:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the Chair Avatar Museum, Gallery 1.

My First Avatar in 2007. A utilitarian folding chair. Suggests a temporary thing, not necessarily very comfy, but flexible and easy to move around

The second one (Autumn 2008) is a recycled chair. I picked this up when someone put it on the curb! It's sturdy and not unattractive. Don't know how long it will last though.

I like the ladder-back idea mostly because of the name. It's a functional, and, depending on the seat weave, a comfortable design. (Nov 09)

It was getting to be rather spring-like, and the idea of a folding lawn chair seemed just right. Get outside, throw it anywhere that the sun is shining and enjoy some time with friends! (March 09)

It's a "captains' chair" - getting down to work. (April '09) Spring cleaning and all that. It's good and sturdy, even if the twitter service isn't always the same. :)

In recognition of Earth Day or, er, Earth Week, I've put up this modified Captain's Chair, with our precious globe in the seat of honour.

This fancy office chair is the one in which I spend my days. It's pretty nicely adjustable, plus I got it at a very good price at a used office furniture place - $1200 new, $40 for me used. How it pays to look around!

Perhaps the only Frank Lloyd Wright chair you'd want to sit in for any length of time, this is one of the Johnson Wax chairs. He designed some snazzy furniture for the magnificent buildings he crafted. Most of his chairs are painful, vertical backed things that look quite cool, but are not shaped for humans.

Saw this neat side chair online from some designers that make it out of a stack of laminated layers like super-thick plywood. The profile is flat so from head on you don't see the profile on the legs, they look square. From the side view they have the dipsy-doodly bits. Kinda cool, but I think it's about $1000 to get one :( [May09]

I was in Paris, enjoying my usual modus operandi, lounging about in cafés, watching the world go by and realized that this would be a perfect theme for my twitter avatar update. Hence, the typical Parisian café chair. You see them everywhere there, and are automatically recognizeable once you've been there. They line the sidewalks, two per table, on the same side, so you can sit with someone special and watch the passers by.(Jun09)

It was only a matter of time before I got onto the BauHaus stuff, and hence this Marcel Breuer classic. If you know about Bauhaus, and someone mentions a Bauhaus chair, this is probably the one that comes to mind. Or not. Breuer apparently named the design for the artist Kandinsky (Wassily is his first name). The intersecting planes and lines are rather Kandinsky like, I suppose. My favourite thing about it is that it looks so modern. You might even think, oh, that's a 1980's chair. But in reality it's from 1926. Not bad for 83 years old.

This is Thor Larsen's Ovalia Chair, often given the name 'egg' chair. But the 'true' Egg Chair is an earlier thing (nice too) by Arne Jacobsen. Not totally egg shaped, but evocative thereof. Larsen's came in various distorted shapes, but the pure egg one is the cool one that epitomizes the 70's. What is it with Scandenavians and awesome chairs. I must admit to being half Finn myself, and having a compulsion to design chairs, which I've successfully restrained mostly. (July 09) There's a bubble chair too, spherical rather than egg shaped. Wait for it, designer: Eero Aarnio (1968)

Here's something contemporary. I was looking for something interesting from Italy, and found this one called Ole from designers Ludovica and Roberto Palomba for the Crassevig line of furniture. This is made from plywood. Really pushes the materials limits, I don't know if I'd want to be on it when it fails. But the look for me made me think of the artist Mondrian who did interesting things with geometric shapes.

I wanted to put up something in a classic dining room design. Came across this one that a site is calling the 'steakhouse.' A pretty good name for it, as it does evoke the feeling of a modern restaurant with simple design, wooden furniture and a utilitarian, blocky feel. This is a simple all wood design, with a leather-like seat. Pretty solid and rudimentary, but attractive.