Batlló Chair by Antoni Gaudi

Batlló Chair by Antoni Gaudi

According to the Urban Dictionary Happenstance means happening by coincidence, accidentally and unintended. I think it is a nice word and appropriate here:

Recently I found the Battlo Bench by Antoni Gaudi and shortly thereafter I discovered these are still produced in Spain by BD Barcelona

Bd Barcelona Design is the Spanish company with the highest international prestige in design. It was founded in 1972 as Bd Ediciones de Diseño by the architects and interior designers Pep Bonet, Cristian Cirici, Lluis Clotet, Mireia Riera and Oscar Tusquets. It has been awarded with the Premio Nacional de Diseño in 1989 and the European Community Design Prize in 1990

Bazaar Livingscape by Superstudio at Dorotheum

This rare Bazaar Livingscape (or loungescape) by Superstudio, upholstered in synthetic snake-skin, was originally designed in 1968 for a nightclub and was now acquired by a Greek bidder for 24.700 Euro at the Viennese Dorotheum auction house end of May 2009.

Armchair by Norman Cherner Reissued

Cherner Chair Black against black

I like this black against black photo I found at Velocity’s site [ed: which is closed now]

Another famous chair being reissued: The Norman Cherner Chair. Just like the (grand)children of Edwin Lutyens and Gerrit Rietveld the second generation of Cherners started to re issue their forebears’ designs:

After listening to countless requests from fellow Architects to see his father’s designs reissued, Benjamin decided to join with his brother Thomas to form the Cherner Chair Company in 1999. Since then the Cherner Chair Company has brought back into production many of Norman Cherner’s most popular designs. Utilizing his original drawings and specifications, the reissued designs are manufactured with the same attention to detail found in the original hand made classics. Cherner Chair products are now distributed through dealers worldwide.

In addition to reissuing the molded plywood chairs, stools and tables, The Cherner Chair Company has introduced new designs by Benjamin Cherner.

The Cherner Chair Company is the sole licensor of Norman Cherner and Benjamin Cherner designs.

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Last edited by Guido J. van den Elshout on February 18, 2012 at 4:49 PM

Lutyens Bench

Thakeham-bench-6-ft
On another tack: The Lutyens Bench. Everybody will immediately recognize this bench as The Lutyens Bench. Actually it is called the Thakeham Bench.

A granddaughter of Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens (1869-1944), Candia Lutyens, started Lutyens Furniture Limited in the UK

She writes about Lutyens:

Edwin Lutyens is often described as the greatest British architect of his age. …
.. That Lutyens was a designer of furniture is not well known. His designs, though numerous, were always produced in small quantities and for a specific effect that was always a complement to the whole. Sadly, almost no Lutyens’s interiors survive intact and many pieces of furniture have been lost. Thus it is that Lutyens’ furniture has never become part of the general consciousness, although on the merits of the designs alone it should rank with, and take its natural place alongside the furniture of all the ‘Twentieth Century Greats’. As with his architecture, Lutyens in his furniture designs makes specific reference to, and is influenced by, the substance and course of the great English tradition of furniture making.
Similarly too, the form, the style and the synergy all bear the stamp of his own individuality. Precise and intricate mathematical details lend an element of surprise and Lutyens’ well-renowned love of jokes and ‘visual puns’ is self-evident in many of the tricks he employs. The result is, like many of his buildings, absolutely controlled yet somehow astonishing – at first sight conventional, yet encompassing at a second glance both the whimsical and the paradoxical. In making Lutyens’ furniture to his own drawings, the task of Lutyens Furniture Limited was both unique and daunting in its application. Our responsibility to the designs dictated that our prime and overriding principle is that the quality of what we produce should be as high as is possible to achieve. We therefore go to considerable lengths to employ the best craftsmanship that is available, in using traditional methods of construction and upholstery, and to comply with Lutyens’ own tastes in terms of materials and timbers. As a result, we have total confidence that these pieces will continue for generations as furniture always used to and as it should.

Candia Lutyens via Lutyens Furniture Limited.

About the Thakeham Bench Candia writes:

The Thakeham seat pictured here in English Oak was designed for the garden at Little Thakeham near Storrington, West Sussex. The rhythmical symmetry of the bench is typical of Lutyens’s love of form. The bench has become an archetypal design in its own right and has sadly, for many, lost its association with Lutyens. It is made all over the world to varying degress of quality (absense thereof). There are no makers of this bench other than LFL that are authorised by the Lutyens family.

I believe it is a bit like aspirin. Aspirin originally was a brand name for a pill Bayer developed. Later on aspirin became a name for anti headache pills in it’s own right, whereupon Bayer lost its intellectual property rights.

Nirvana Chair by Adrian Thornber

Nirvana Chair by Adrian Thornber   with stand 01
Nirvana Chair with stand

Nirvana Chair with Bride
Nirvana Chair with bride

Nirwana Chair by Adrian Thornber 04 Nirvana Chair with Adrian Thornber

Nirvana Chair by Adrian Thornber.

About Adrian Thornber

Sussex, UK based engineer Adrian Thornber worked for many years as a welder and fabricator in the marine industry, then as a property developer. In his latter role he became interested in retro style chairs to furnish a 1960ies minimalist style villa. This led to the development of the Nirvana Chair inspired by designs from that period.

Adrian has now produced over 100 chairs in his workshop, personally building each one himself. Bending, welding and polishing the stainless steel, shaping and sewing the sheepskins. Each one takes two to three weeks to produce.

They have been sent to clients all over the world; to Japan, down into Europe and across the USA, including a batch produced for a multi million dollar spa refurbishment project at the Ritz Carlton Hotel, Palm Beach, Miami.

These chairs are not available in the shops and are only shown at one or two exhibitions per year, ensuring they remain very exclusive and highly desirable.