Extracted from the MODERN BOOK CHAIRS by Charlotte Fiell (1993)
Sitting culture using seating facilities such as chairs contains various important events in human civilization. Chairs have a more complex meaning than tables or other types of furniture, this is due to the relationship of human interaction with chairs physically, psychologically and symbolically.
In the context of modern chair design, the transformation of design from era to era represents various zeitgeist spirits of world socio-economic changes, revolutions in science, technology, symbols of status and power, and the birth of art movements and ideologies (Art & Craft Movement, Memphis, De Stijl).
Modernism teaches man about the concept of private territorialization andpublic, and seats then placed as part of territorializationaforementioned. The typology, function, and style of the chair is an effort to ensure the successful role of the chair as an artifact to humans, the environment (interior), and issues.
In the book 'Modern Chairs', Dr. Cristopher Dresser (1873) defines the chair as follows : "A chair is a stool with a back-rest, and a stool is a board elevated from the ground by support." That is, the chair is a sitting facility with a backrest and a height top'. Unfortunately, the definition becomes too simple when looking at the concepts contained in modern chair designs. The development of art, science and technology, accompanied by the growth of various ideological movements had a direct effect on the chair in particular, and was even touted to be a new generation of industrialized art. Here we discuss some monumental modern chairs.
THONET CHAIRIn the era of modernism, the Thonet chair, was a breakthrough in the furniture industry. The technique of steam bending in 1836 became the starting point of the history of furniture industrialization along with the industrialization of furniture in conjunction with the industrial revolution movement in other parts of the world. It was Michael Thonet, the Austrian-born furniture designer who patented the technique.After he obtained a patent in wood bending technique, he emphasized new precedents in the context of the evolution of modern chairs, namely the elimination of shades, the emphasis of natural materials, comfort, and beauty.
Marked by William Smith Williams, in the title of his 1849 lecture entitled 'Importance of the Study of Design' which contains the adaptation of objects to their needs as a symptom of the birth of modernism that continues to roll in line with the aspirations of architectural modernism 'Less is more', 'Simplicity is beauty', 'Form followfunction' and 'Reason is the first principle of all human work'. The concept is represented by the works of modernists such as Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright, and other figures.
Thonet, as the owner of the furniture manufacturing industry 'Gebruder Thonet' became an icon representing the birth of the first mass production in the field of furniture manufacturing. The Thonet Model No. 14 seats had produced 40 million units between 1859 and 1914. With the systematics of the fabrication process similar to the current era, by employing no less than 25,000 employees in 60 factories spread across the ranks of Europe.
Thonet Seat Model No. 14
The next era of furniture manufacturing is increasingly developing tools that imitate the pattern of handwork. Carpentry performance is increasingly shifting to less meaningful. The industrialization system is very effective in meeting the demands of quantity little by little fostering sentiment towards industrialization itself. This sentiment is an ideology of togetherness for artists and carpentry experts, namely the spirit of the Art and Craft Movement pioneered by John Ruskin and william Morris. The movement warmed up as a form of resistance to the industrial revolution, a spirit that emphasized the manifestation of critiques and artists to be more appreciated and as a control over the pace of industrialization.
ERA ART AND CRAFT MOVEMENTThe Art and Craft Movement was very influential for several later art and design schools. The Glasgow School of Art in the UK is part of the history of this movement, figures such as Charles Rennie Mackintosh with his work Side Chair provided great inspiration for his life geometric abstract style. The abstract geometric taste of Mackintosh-style is still possible to be obtained at the traditional furniture center in Semarang, Indonesia with the name Semarangan style.
'Side Chair' by Rennie Mackintosh
'Semarangan chair' in geometric abstract style
'SITZMASCHINE' MOCKING ART NOUVEAUSitzmaschine Model No. 670 seems to make fun of the Art Nouveau styleModernism is constantly trying to assert its existence, Josef Hoffman in his work Sitzmaschine Model No. 670 seems to make fun of the Art Nouveau style with a rather sophisticated appearance of his era (sophisticated, because it is equipped with a reclining slot backrest). Reinforced by the statement of attitude from the modernist group of architects and designers 'The Deutsche Werkbund' which proposes a redefinition of industrial products in a form of unity of artists, industrialists, critiques in upholding more meaningful values in design. One of its members, Adolf Loos wrote a provocative work entitled 'Ornament und Verbrechen' which means that excessive use of ornaments is a disgrace and a crime. Next up, 'Form ohne Ornament' is an illustration of industrialization based solely on function.
Sitzmaschine Model No. 670 by Josef Hoffman
The development of industrialization and furniture manufacturing deserves gratitude for the development of the ideological movements that flourished at that time. Industrialized modernism had not yet met its identity at all before the concept of excellence as well as the true meaning of modernism itself was evoked by the 'Red and Blue Chair' of the work. maestro Gerrit Rietveld. The chair gives a major account of the understanding of modernism. Retvield's chair does not enliven the celebration of new materials or new construction techniques, but rather confirms a consequence of modernism. He questioned the need for the habit of netting and coating, minimizing materials and materials, and using pieces of wood of proper size and compact joints as an answer as well as a satire to modernism and industrialization that remains grounded in conventional solar techniques. That is, simplicity in construction makes it easier for such products to be mass-produced on a large scale. Its light visual appearance also requires that a chair does not need to look heavy, both materially and visually which is often associated with high costs. Similarly, with some primary color choices, all these aspects are inferences to the meaning of design rationalization. Although the shape of the chair, which tends to be avant-garde, is unsightly, it exists as a compass of modernism. So the public in that era assumed, this is the new definition of art after cubism, abstractism and dadaism.
'Red and Blue Chair' by Gerrit Rietveld
THE ERA OF IRON CAST TECHNOLOGY, CUSHIONS AND UPHOLSTERERSThe tradition of debate in that era is increasingly towards an ideological rather than a technical frenzy. The 'red and blue chair' was then exhibited at the Bauhaus—a leading school of design—in 1923 and became a real icon of the utopian vision of the De-Stijl movement, even earning the stamp as the first seat to radically express modern ideology. De-Stijl as a puritanical movement of art and design, obsesses over purifying the idea of art and design by simply cooperating with abstract cubism, neo-plasticism which in its image seeks to find the meaning of honesty and beauty to bring harmony and enlightenment to man.
Further developments seemed to be accelerating, the Bauhaus school of art and design represented by Mies and Marcel Breuer carried the Barcelona chair and the Wassily chair, which was also the subject of ridicule. Where the Bauhaus, which refers to the concept of machine-made, turned out to be through the Wassily chair, the consistency died because the production process was closely related to carpentry (hand-made). This is a common conclusion that actual masinal/fabrication production is only feasible if the mechanizations have been sufficiently understood.
Wassily Club Chair no. B3 1925, by Marcel Breuer
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