I would not have imagined that a naval mine could inspire someone to create a chair from, but it did inspire Estonian artist Mati Karmin. Unusual? Yes! Uncomfortable? No! Not at least when you look at these photos. The Mine Chairs seem decently comfortable for seating, but the thought of sitting in an old – possibly Russian – sea mine may give you very uncomfortable shivers. There seem thousands of mines left over by the Russians from the cold war and fro WW 1 and WW2 on an island 10 miles from the Estonian coast and this is one way of getting rid of them: Rejuvenate them!
Currently Via has an exposition until December 31, 2011, b.a-ba. It showcases a new way of giving the (in)famous Monobloc Plastic Chair a worthy second life. A Monobloc Rehab one could say. Emmaus is a huge French organization that annually takes in thousands and thousands chairs that cannot be resold. Among them plenty of Monoblocs. In addition it recycles tons and tons of textile unsuitable for reuse. French designer Cyrille Candas has brought the two together with paint. She has the textile ground into a short fiber called floc an mixes the floc with colorful paint. She also gave it a label (b.a-ba) and there is a new sustainable brand being born. Quite sustainable I would say. And we have an addition for our own colorful palettes of chair colors we are slowly, but gradually building into color portfolios here on the blog and via pinterest.
Found this original Thonet no. 25 at another specialist, now one who repairs cane parts of thonets and other cane backed or seated chairs and boat seatings: Suzandy based in the UK.
In a post of my significant other blog I started a plea to revive the very snug cane High Back Beach Chair of Scheveningen. Up to the seventies there was almost no Dutch Beach without this type of chair. Northern Gemany Beaches still do frequently use another type of High Back Beach chair. It’s main features are protection against the wind and more privacy on the beach.
Just thought to enhance the reach of that plea by posting additional photo’s of the historic Dutch High Back Beach chair here.
Although I like this variation best as its curvy appearance is much more elegant.