Investigation into Chair Design
For my Investigation into chair designs I choose to investigate how simplistic and basic the chairs have become. From Charles Rennie Mackintosh, who was renowned for his style and applied decoration to Philippe Stark who has taken simplistic to another level. I have investigated how the designers have used applied decoration to enhance the look of their chair, to how functional the pieces are (or in some cases un-functional! ).
HIGH BACKED CHAIR - CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH - 1902
Mackintosh produced designs on a whole range of furnishings as well as his architectural designs. Many of these were purely functional but he also produced many ‘artistic’ pieces throughout his life. Because of the large amount of applied decoration on Macintosh’s pieces that it could be argued that each piece is a finely detailed work of art itself.
Probably the most famous of such pieces are his famous high backed chairs. The high backed chair I have chosen to study was made for the International Exhibition of modern Decorative Art, held in Turin in Italy in 1902
The chair appears to have a very low seat, being only a quarter of the height of the actual chair, this also may perhaps be due to the fact the seat is fairly broad at the front, widening out from a fairly narrow back. The back of the chair is as wide as the back of the seat but tapers towards the top. This main support is framed with two tall slim struts.
The construction of the low seat and tapering back makes the chair look almost abstract because of these bizarre proportions. In the photograph it looks as if the picture has been taken from a strange angle which has distorted the shape.
There is little in the way of applied decoration on the chair except for the back, which on a portion is padded and covered in a light blue-grey colour. On this is a painted stylised rose bush design that fills the width of the padded portion. Beneath this is what appears to be wilting petals falling from the bush. At the top of the chair carved into a piece of wood is an organic form of sorts with the typical Art Nouveau whiplash stretching the length of it. Mackintosh was renowned for his stylised design - taking the natural form of something, for example a flower, and altering it to fit his style - this could possibly be a very developed stylised design Against the white wood work of this desi...
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...d in adds plentiful character to the chair. The function of this chair is to be ‘fun’, to add character to someone’s dining room and I think that this chair would look good in any room regardless of the decor.
From this investigation I was surprised by the range of different styles and forms that a chair could take. I enjoyed the form of the God Raysse, but my favourite would have to be the Pepe Chair by far due to its larger than life personality.
From the ‘classic’, ‘traditional’ designers like Macintosh who revolutionised and popularised the style of Art Nouveau and to this day still has an impact and influence on designers world wide whether it be on furniture, windows or clothes, to modern designers who have also revolutionised the ‘simplistic’ style making it take many forms from ‘drips’ to ‘giraffes’. For instance the Pepe Chair took the high backed chair and gave it a modern day simplistic twist. Who knows where our rears shall sit in years to come? Shall we be sitting on more simplistic designs than the ones I have used as examples in this investigation or pieces complex beyond the imagination. Who knows? We shall just have to wait and see where our bums shall lead us!
I wander down the Hall of Mirrors in the French Palace of Versailles. Soon after I am thinking of the converse style, and recall that German Architect Mies van der Rohe has created the most simplistic a...
Lawson, Bryan. How Designers Think: The Design Process Demystified. 4th ed. Oxford: Architectural Press, 2006.
According to Demos, the consumer revolution offered choices for those who could afford the Philadelphia Chippendale chair. For example, "a well-to-do tobacco planter and his wife ...would explore new possibilities for furnishing and decorating their house" . This supports the idea of free choice and moving in a pattern supporting the idea of progress. A description of the Chippendale chair would include that it is hand carved by highly skilled journeymen cabinetmakers that have fashioned ornamentation out of mahogany wood. These craftsman have added a generously padded seat for comfort, with a hand carved S-shaped wide back that's tapered down to the seat. The chair measures 36"7/8 inches in height and the seat is 23"3/4 from the floor. The front legs of the chair are carved in a ball and claw design reflecting Chinese culture, which reflected the linear movement during this time approximately the year 1750, which demonstrated moving away from the modern classical period. The Philadelphia Chippendale chair clearly symbolizes the transformation from cyclical rhythm to linear rhythm.
chair which was used in every room of the house by the Federal Period. Many of the
The overall appearance of the table and chairs shows a rectangular shape with very definitive, sharp vertical and horizontal presence. The piece plays with your eyes as it takes you upward and then back horizontally. It is like its breathing up and then across. The thick lines of the table hang strongly over the edges at each end. These strong line reinforce the supports at each corner crossing pillars which appear to be holding up the tabletop. When you look below you see four base pedestals which also support the tabletop and they are placed at angles, which I believe is just to skew your eyes to the overall straight lines the piece eludes at first glance. But when you look at the details of the banding at the base of each leg and support you are tied together again visually by the base ribbon created about the bottom of the piece which ties it all together. Further, at the top of the piece the tops of the chairs equates to the tops of the square portion of the light fixtures at each corner. On purpose there is this line created visually to tie the piece together. It creates a visual circular pattern around the entire 'rectangular' table. You see this on the base and the top of the piece as well as at all angles you look at this table and chairs. There is a sense of unity that just brings you around and around the table and chairs. The unity of this band draws you into the intimacy of the piece. It envelopes a sense of security, drawing you in as if you are a part of the furniture itself
Though the interiors he designed were created to be useful spaces, his focus was more on aesthetic than function . Within his individual objects of art such as chairs, tables, drawers, staircases and many others he focused more on the form of the object than on its intended use. Instead, Kuramata appeared to want the presence of the piece to surpass its function, something that is only possible when there is a symbolic value . One of the best examples of a work of art fitting these stipulations was his design of the Miss Blanche armchair (fig. 3) in 1988 . The chair is made of acrylic resin and embedded with artificial roses and aluminum . Kuramata’s title of the work, choice of materials, color contrast, process of creation and simple aesthetic combine to create a piece of work that forces the viewer to question whether or not it can even be considered a chair. This work of art allows the functionality to disapp...
She captured herself in beautiful low-cut blue satin dress and the students in working dresses. The dress was painted in great detail and captured both the sheen and fluidity of satin. This was achieved by using shading and li...
Emily Dickinson is one of the great visionary poets of nineteenth century America. In her lifetime, she composed more poems than most modern Americans will even read in their lifetimes. Dickinson is still praised today, and she continues to be taught in schools, read for pleasure, and studied for research and criticism. Since she stayed inside her house for most of her life, and many of her poems were not discovered until after her death, Dickinson was uninvolved in the publication process of her poetry. This means that every Dickinson poem in print today is just a guess—an assumption of what the author wanted on the page. As a result, Dickinson maintains an aura of mystery as a writer. However, this mystery is often overshadowed by a more prevalent notion of Dickinson as an eccentric recluse or a madwoman. Of course, it is difficult to give one label to Dickinson and expect that label to summarize her entire life. Certainly she was a complex woman who could not accurately be described with one sentence or phrase. Her poems are unique and quite interestingly composed—just looking at them on the page is pleasurable—and it may very well prove useful to examine the author when reading her poems. Understanding Dickinson may lead to a better interpretation of the poems, a better appreciation of her life’s work. What is not useful, however, is reading her poems while looking back at the one sentence summary of Dickinson’s life.
One of Emily Dickinson’s greatest skills is taking the familiar and making it unfamiliar. In this sense, she reshapes how her readers view her subjects and the meaning that they have in the world. She also has the ability to assign a word to abstractness, making her poems seemingly vague and unclear on the surface. Her poems are so carefully crafted that each word can be dissected and the reader is able to uncover intense meanings and images. Often focusing on more gothic themes, Dickinson shows an appreciation for the natural world in a handful of poems. Although Dickinson’s poem #1489 seems disoriented, it produces a parallelism of experience between the speaker and the audience that encompasses the abstractness and unexpectedness of an event.
Lawson, Bryan. How Designers Think: The Design Process Demystified. NY: Architectural Press, 1980, 2007. Massachusetts: NECSI Knowledge Press, 2004.
What is ergonomics? Ergonomics is the science of fitting the job to the worker. When there is a mismatch between the physical requirements of the job and the physical capacity of the worker, work-related musculoskeletal disorders can result. Workers who must repeat the same motion throughout their workday, work in an awkward position use a great deal of force to perform, repeatedly lift heavy objects or face a combination of these risk factors are most likely to develop work-related musculoskeletal disorders.
By the late 1960s, it had been established that minimalism was not about depiction but interpretation. It had a density of subject that didn’t reveal itself immediately to the viewer. It was simple, clean and geometrical and sought to express its underlying structure.
Crumbley, Paul. “Emily Dickinson’s Life.” Modern American Poetry. National Biography Online. 2000. Web. 31 January 2014.
One of the key ideas of the modern era was to forge the designs of the future on the corpses of the past, disregarding everything from the last era and moving forward with new ideals and styles. Refining and discarding they shaped, molded and constricted the ideas of design until reaching the pinnacle of minimalism. Creating design with pure aesthetics and reducing an object down to its core fundamental elements. Using the ideas of “less is more” or even “using less for more”, the designs ended up simple and elegant with a focus not in quantit...
“When it comes to interior design styles, give yourself the permission to think outside the box. There are so many wonderful ways to define who you are by creating a magnificent living space. Allow yourself to be creative. Be stylish. And when I say outside the box, I don’t necessarily mean go crazy, I simply suggest you take some steps to create the type of home that you really want or that your client is asking you to create” (Yule 1). Looking into interior design there are many elements that contribute to the way people view the room or area, such as the color, flooring, furniture, fabrics, and accessories in every room. Within the following research paper, interior design will be discussed by the interior design styles, the effects of color, and the trends of bathrooms.