Chairs, Chair Design and Chair Designers
One of my readers would like some help from other reader with determining the provenance of this interesting S Curved Plywood Tripod Chair.
Browsing the web I could only come up with the following more or less similar chair designs:
The Bellevue Chair by French architect painter and sculptor Andre Bloc and
Brasilean Sergio Faher’s Commo Chair
However both lack the characteristic rib reinforcing the back. Any ideas?
In September I visited Paris and L’Arche in La Defence. I took the lift to the top floor of L’Arche which has a museum of communication. There I found several chairs to enable viewing various tromp l’oeils. I didn’t know their provenance until I bought the book 100 masterpieces of the Vitra Design museum in Vienna at Prodomo Windows. From that excellent catalog I learned these chairs are most likely variations on the original Sandows Chaise designed by Rene Herbst.
About Rene Herbst
Born in Paris in 1891, René Herbst studied architecture in London and Frankfurt from 1908. After finishing his studies, he traveled extensively in Russia and Italy. In 1919 he started working as a furniture designer and interior decorator in Paris. He founded Etablissements René Herbst to produce the pieces he designed.
In 1925 René Herbst designed several exhibition stalls for the Paris “Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes”.
In 1927 René Herbst designed the revolutionary and functional “Chaise Sandows” seat furniture. The frames were nickel-plated tubular steel, the seat and back was made of rubber strips stretched taut and fastened to the frame by hooks at the end.
René Herbst first showed his “Chaise Sandows” at the 1929 Salon d’Automne, where Le Corbusier also presented furniture with tubular steel frames.
In 1930 René Herbst joined Robert Mallet-Stevens, Francis Jourdain, and others in founding the Union des Artistes Modernes (UAM); a large group of artists and designers committed to Modernism joined the co-founders. The UAM was founded as a countermovement to Art déco, which the UAM artists repudiated because they found it overloaded with decoration and too ornamental. In 1945 René Herbst was elected chairman of the UAM. The UAM organized exhibitions in Paris under the heading of “Les Formes Utiles” (Utilitarian Forms).
cited from René Herbst.com
Sandows is French for the rubber strips or bungees that form the seating and back of the chair.
Recently, at a Paris auction of Christie’s this Sandows Chair that reportedly belonged to Rene Herbst own collection was sold for € 4,375.
Crystallized Chair by Nina Edwards Anker
The various facets of the chair catch and reflect the changing daylight like a crystal. A variation of the cape chair, this chair is supported by a wide back and slender front foot. The chair consists of four components of 8mm thick plywood fastened together in two places, painted glossy white. The same 150 angle mold is used for forming all four wood pieces, increasing efficiency of mass production.
Via Nea
Cleaning up and talking of concrete…I had these photos of a Concrete Element Bench on my computer for ages. I pinched them somewhere from a German site, hence they are coined Sitz Beton, which means as much as concrete to sit on.
3,750 kg of concrete to sit on royally…
They are from …. Stizbeton.de
Not only in a blue mood but also in a Chinese design mood…
Via Antique Spider [ed:discontinues since posting] I found this traditional Chinese Wedding Chair.
The bride was taken to her husband’s home sitting on the chair right after the wedding celebrations. It was tradition. Her feet were bound as was the custom.
See also this painting.
