Chairblog.eu

I found this chair at Mid modern/ Mass modern, two Companies owned by one man, Etienne Feijns, who started out as 7 year old boy to accompany his parents on their searching quests of Antique and Brocante markets in The Netherlands an Belgium.

Later he started to collect midcentury and later 20ieth century  design on his own and formed the two companies until the two companies got together in a 5,000 square meter warehouse where he keeps his trade and treasures. Only visit able on appointment.

About the Spaarbank Chair

Ultra rare easy chair designed by Jacobus Johannes Pieter Oud for Rotterdamse spaarbank, Holland 1960. This easy chair was designed for the interior of the Spaarbank van Rotterdam in 1960. The chair has a matt chrome plated tubular metal frame and has its original vynil grey and off white upholstery in nice two tone contrast. The other chairs from the bank were reupholstered by Pander in blue and yellow faux leather upholstery but for an unknown reason this chair survived and still has its original upholstery which makes this an exceptional and museal lounge chair.

Jacobus Johannes Pieter Oud, often called J. J. P. Oud (9 February 1890 – 5 April 1963) was an important Dutch architect. His fame began as a follower of the De Stijl movement. Oud was born in Purmerend, the son of a tobacco and wine merchant. As a young architect, he was influenced by Berlage, and studied under Theodor Fischer in Munich for a time. He worked together with W.M. Dudok in Leiden, which is where he also met Theo van Doesburg and became involved with the movement De Stijl.

Between 1918 and 1933, Oud became Municipal Housing Architect for Rotterdam. During this period when many laborers were coming to the city, he mostly worked on socially progressive residential projects. This included projects in the areas of Spangen, Kiefhoek and the Witte Dorp. Oud was one of a number of Dutch architects who attempted to reconcile strict, rational, ‘scientific’ cost-effective construction technique against the psychological needs and aesthetic expectations of the users. His own answer was to practice ‘poetic functionalism’.

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Chairs!
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I’ve featured this chair earlier, but below writeup by the German museum sheds some more light on the provenance of this chair.

JJ Pieter Oud, armchair 03, 1933
The new collection – Museum of Applied Arts, Munich

Dutch architect and designer Jacobus Johannes Pieter Oud was co-founder of the influential De Stijl group and Rotterdam’s city architect. Oud was not only one of the most important pioneers of modernism and functionalism in the Netherlands, but also received great international recognition.

In the early 1930s, the progressive department store Metz & Co in Amsterdam commissioned artists and architects – including J.J.P. Oud – with the design of modern furniture. Oud’s first four designs were presented in a small exhibition entitled “Het stalen meubel 1934” that opened in December 1933 in the department store’s new domed hall, designed by Gerrit Thomas Rietveld. Up to now Oud had only designed furniture for the clients of his respective buildings, but these tubular steel chairs are his first series-produced furniture. As avant-garde and modern as this first small collection from Metz was, the sales that could be achieved were just as small. But at least Metz managed to attract international attention – Philip Johnson, then curator at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, suggested the production of tubular steel furniture Ouds in America, which was just as unsuccessful as the acquisition of a copy by MOMA .

Model 03, intended as an office chair, impresses with its unusual construction of the cross-shaped chair legs. With his designs for tubular steel furniture, Oud was not only concerned with creating modern and comfortable furniture, but also furniture that, as room-constituting elements, represented an equivalent to the rooms of the New Building.

Due to the small number of editions, the tubular steel chairs by Oud for Metz are among the extremely rare examples of Dutch modernism. As late as 1990, page 98 of the exhibition catalog of the Boijman’s-van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam states: “… Of all these variants, nothing has survived except for a few old photos and the drawings that have been preserved.”

dr Joseph Strasser

Illustration:

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1890-1963), Armchair 03, 1933. Manufacturer: Metz & Co, Amsterdam. Chrome-plated tubular steel, white leather. H 70 cm, W 53 cm, D 68.6 cm.

© The new collection – Museum for Applied Arts, Munich

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Chairs!
gje