Month: January 2011

Extraordinary Garden – High Back Chair by Jean Boggio for Franz

“Jardin Extraordinaire” (‘The Extraordinary Garden’) collection by Jean Boggio for Franz is finished in a timeless color combination of black and white and features this seemingly simplistic tall chair. It’s when you look closer that you realize it’s anything but simple – the chair’s high back is a white panel with a complicated porcelain jungle design on its front side. With volumetric palm trees, lianas and flowers, the chair back looks like a fine piece of art and is sure to make your dining room feel extraordinary.

If I were to put those at my place, I wouldn’t overburden the space with art and let the chairs dictate the theme instead. A candle lit dinner served against those artful beauties might provide for an interesting play of shadows! The only thing left to figure out is whether rubbing of backs against the fine porcelain is something to be concerned about.

Originally trained as a gold and silversmith, French artist Jean Boggio is best known for his jewelry creations – a passion he had since 1984. Ready to explore new artistic perspectives, in 2005 the artist joined forces with the Taiwanese porcelain manufacturer Franz, the collaboration that let Mr. Boggio make his entry into the field of furniture. Together they created a modern collection under the new Jean Boggio for Franz brand.

Meet Our New Contributor Julia Osovskaya

Julia Osovskaya at Chairblog
I’m very pleased to present you our third contributor, Julia Osovskaya.

As with Polley, the introduction with Julia was via our FB fanpage. After some comments Julia indicated she was in the market to contribute to Chairblog. “Most Welcome” was my reaction. You can find more about Julia at So Thankful Project and on her own FB fanpage.

Julia About Julia:

My name is Julia Osovskaya and I am a thankful person, chair design enthusiast and a mindful eating foodie with a taste for sophisticated things. I live in Moscow, Russia. It’s possible that some of you may already know me via my The “˜Thank You” Project blog, which I’ve had running since September 2009. Having established an online presence for my thankful personality, it’s time I did something about the hopeless chair lover in me. “But why chairs?”, you may ask.

Chairs are important because all of us interact with at least one daily, and each such chair interaction can make us or break us, depending on how good your chair is. I also believe that a lot can be told about a person by the type of chairs they fancy and own.

When it comes to chairs and me, seeing one I like instantly inspires me to imagine it in particular surroundings, it’s as if I start a room decoration process in my mind and all in accordance with a chair I come across. I think of a chair as of a focal point in a room it’s placed and believe that a whole design concept can be created around a single chair. And even though sofas and stools, ottomans and armchairs are all pretty cool, my favorite piece of seating furniture, the perfect form, is still a good old chair – an object with a seat for one person, a support for the back and a number of legs.

Because both Polley and I look into the world through our glasses, Julia choose this photo of her to emphasize she has her own look on all things chairs: through a hole in a Russian Cookie:-)

Welcome on board Julia!

Rolf Fehlbaum: The “Chair” Man

Rolf Fehlbaum, the CEO of Vitra is the “Chair” man. Very modestly he explains the why and how of a manufacturing company which started with chairs from Eames and went on and on with an impressive campus with buildings by world famous architects and it’s own design museum.

Panton Chair 50ieth Anniversary Variations

My Fave

The competition winner by Jump Studios

A mirrored one

And a holed one

From the Vitra site I learned that the Panton Chair had a long incubation period. So it’s not easy to pinpoint its start. However, in 2010 they decided to celebrate the chair’s 50ieth anniversary. Via Bustler I learned the UK representative of Vitra had invited various British designers to give an interpretation of the Panton Chair at the occasion of this 50ieth anniversary. They received 31 entries. On July 1m 2010 all 31 entries were auctioned. The proceedings of about £ 10’000 were passed onto Shelter.
Space Invading features 24 entries. You can find them on Facebook as well and guess what? That’s the Vitra Facebook page. I don’t understand why they didn’t feature this on their site…

Hanger Chair by Biaugust

Hanger Chair by Biaugust

Hanger Chair by Biaugust

Discovered this Hanger Chair by Biaugust (photo via Fubonart)

About Biaugust

Both born in August, Owen Chuang and Cloud Lu named their co-founded design company “Biaugust” to declare that their love for design was as passsionate as the August sun. After completing their foreign studies in Japan in 2005, both of them chose to return to Taiwan and establish the “Biaugust Creation Office” in Taipei. They then began to carry out a wide range of graphic design tasks, and started to participate in all kinds ofart-creation activities.

Biaugust about the Hanger Chair:

Hanger + Clothes
The appearance, shape and function of a hanger are changed when it is taken apart. But it’s still a hanger after we rebuild it. We take old weathered hangers, remove the brittle plastic and weld the metal parts together. With some of our creative thoughts, we designed a chair for hangers. We use the recycled fabric, paper and cotton thread to weave a cover for the chair. Hangers, clothes and people are already related. And the relationship has transformed to a whole new level because of this design.

Wonder whether we will be seeing more chairs of these designers.

via Designspotter.