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NELSON BRIDGE’S LIST OF TOP TEN MODERN CHAIRS - #1 - THE EGG CHAIR
Posted on July 1st, 2009 No comments
The Egg Chair, #1 in our list of Most Favorite Modern Chairs.
Ah, the #1 most wonderful modern chair. Can there really be only one for all modern occasions? Perhaps not… But the Egg Chair, nonetheless, is surely among the ten greatest. It is on the one hand, like so many of the other chairs in our list: an innovative use of material, utilizing a fiberglass shell. But beyond that, it is an icon that recognized a new freedom of form brought on by the modern movement. Many other chairs have been compared to the Egg, including Eero Saarinen’s womb chair but the Egg is far more pure in form and concept than the Womb (that tends to be a more contrived shape).
Designed by Arne Jacobsen in 1958, the Egg was first used throughout the SAS Hotel in Copenhagen. Fritz Hansen has continuously manufactured the Egg since its inception, and recently celebrated 50 years of the egg’s production with a commemorative Egg in Brown Suede. While Jacobson is perhaps best known for his chairs, including the Ant and the Swan as well as others, he is also recognized as one of Denmark’s best architects of the 20th century. His commissions included the St. Catherine’s College at Oxford.
Nonetheless, his chairs continue to be his finest and most memorable achievements. The Egg chair in particular continues to be as fresh and original today as it was 50 years ago. It is a remarkably memorable icon of modern furniture whose expressive form adds life to any room it inhabits and makes this our #1 most favorite Modern Chair.
Learn more about Arne Jacobsen and The Egg Chair:
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NELSON BRIDGE’S LIST OF TOP TEN MODERN CHAIRS - #02 - The Platner Chair
Posted on June 9th, 2009 No comments
The Platner Chair, #2 in our list of Most Favorite Modern Chairs.
The Platner chair is all about the material. And that material is nickel-plated steel rod. Though our #3 chair (The Bertoia Bird Chair) is also made of steel rod, the Platner chair is more about metal rod whereas the Bird chair is more about sculpture. That is not to say that the final form of the Platner is not sculptural. But here, the repetition of the material is what gives this chair its striking appearance, its first impression, not so much its shape. In some ways the Platner Chair is reminiscent of our #10 chair (Pesce’s Feltri) as well, in that, rather than having a traditional base or set of legs with the body supported above, the material itself is structural and form giving, as a vertical blanket of wire.
By all accounts Warren Platner was not as flamboyant as some of the other chair designers represented in our 10 Best Modern Chair series (there are no ”Today Show” Utube recounts for example). Nonetheless he was no less accomplished. After receiving his Architectural degree from Cornell, Platner worked in the offices of notables such as Saarinen, Roch and I.M. Pei, before forming his own office in 1965. His practice included little architectural work and instead centered on Furniture and Interior design. His furniture collection for Knoll has been in continuous production since the sixties and some of his most notable interior design accomplishments include the Ford Foundation Headquarters and The Windows to the World restaurant, lost on 9/11.
Some have described The Platner Chair as being like a sheaf of wheat, bound together with rope… However you describe it, the Platner chair transforms its material makeup into a new language of chair and this is why it is our #2 most favorite Modern Chair.
- Windows On The World
Wikipedia - Windows On The World
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NELSON BRIDGE’S LIST OF TOP TEN MODERN CHAIRS - #03 - The Bird Chair
Posted on June 1st, 2009 No comments
The Bird Chair, #3 in our list of Most Favorite Modern Chairs
The Bird Chair is as much “sculpture” as it is “chair” which is not surprising since its creator Harry Bertoia went on to become a Sculptor in his own right. Ironically it was the great success of his furniture for Knoll International (and the income it generated) that enabled him to pursue his sculptural ambitions (his later life was almost exclusively dedicated to his Art).
As Bertoia said of his furniture designs: “they are mainly made of air, like sculpture. Space passes through them.”
Through his revolutionary use of wire rod, Bertoia was able to create an incredibly strong and yet seemingly delicate and fluid shape through this basket weave of metal. Though the Bird chair is one of the lesser known of the series of chairs that he made for knoll with this technique (the Diamond Chair was more successful), it is perhaps the most evocative and animated.
Harry Bertoia was born in San Lorenzo, Pordenone, Italy in 1915. At the age of 15 he traveled to Chicago to visit his brother and ended up making the US his home. Upon arriving here, he began his studies at Cass Technical High School in Chicago and finished at the Cranbrook Academy of Art. There he met and began work with Charles & Ray Eames. After helping to develop some of the Eames’ most well known plywood and metal rod chairs, he moved to Pennsylvania to begin his own furniture collection for Florence Knoll (of Knoll International) who he had met during his time at Cranbrook. This is where he further developed his use of metal wire in the creation of his series of chairs for Knoll.
Of all the chairs he developed for Knoll, the Bird Chair took the modern chair to a new, more sculptural realm and that is why it is our #3 most favorite Modern Chair.
Learn More About Harry Bertoia and The Bird Chair:
http://www.knoll.com/designer/designer_detail.jsp?designer_id=22
http://www.knoll.com/products/brochures/Bertoiabird.pdf
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NELSON BRIDGE’S LIST OF TOP TEN MODERN CHAIRS - #04 - The Wassily Chair
Posted on May 18th, 2009 2 comments
The Wassily Chair, #4 in our list of Most Favorite Modern Chairs
The Wassily chair, as it is known today, was originally named the B3 chair when it was first designed by Marcel Breuer at the Bauhaus in 1925. The chair soon became a favorite of fellow Bauhaus professor, Wassily Kandinsky. Kandinsky liked it so much, in fact, that Breuer made him a duplicate for his own, and when it was later put into production it took on Kandinsky’s name through this association.
Breuer’s Wassily along with his Cesca chair have become some of the best-known furniture to come out of the Bauhaus. They were both developed using techniques gleaned from the production of bicycles. While the Wassily chair is perhaps less known than his Cesca chair to the general public. The Cesca has become a favorite of kitchenette stores and bargain producers and has been cheapened both in price and quality by the multitude of knock offs available. The Wassily, on the other hand is far more innovative and complex, and a bit more difficult to produce than
the Cesca and therefore retains, for the most part, its quality and stature in the design world. Its form follows the shape of a traditional club chair, where all the parts have been distilled down to their most basic structural elements. It becomes, in essence, the outline of a club chair in its purest form. It is just this essential purity that makes Breuer’s Wassily chair one of our ten most favorite modern chairs.Learn More About Marcel Breuer and The Wassily Chair:
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NELSON BRIDGE’S LIST OF TOP TEN MODERN CHAIRS - #05 - The Big Easy Chair
Posted on May 9th, 2009 No comments
The Big Easy Chair #5 in our list of Favorite Chairs
For anyone who has come to think that a chair is just a chair, enter the “Big Easy Chair” by Ron Arad. The Big Easy Chair is like a world unto itself, where all things are voluptuous and all things break the mold. Its groundbreaking and curvaceous
form has given the designer a lot to explore in this world of “The Big Easy Chair”. Originally designed in the 1980’s, Mr. Arad has continued to develop and expand this recognizable form for over 20 years, producing it in metal, resin, carbon fiber, and upholstery. These many incarnations only further demonstrate the flexibility and timeless quality of this design.Born in Tel Aviv and educated at the Jerusalem Academy of Art, Ron Arad moved to London, studied at the Architectural Association there and went on to develop his first studio: “One Off Ltd”. Since then he has become professor at the Royal College of Art, and a fixture in the international furniture and design scene. His work is among some of the great museums around the world, and his products are produced by Kartel, Alessi, Moroso and many others.
While the Big Easy Chair may not be as well known as some of our other favorite chairs, its power to transform the landscape of the modern chair makes it a must among our 10 most favorite chairs.
Learn More About Ron Arad and The Big Easy Chair:
The Big Easy Chair @ Bonluxat.com
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NELSON BRIDGE’S LIST OF TOP TEN MODERN CHAIRS - #06 - The Barcelona Lounge
Posted on May 2nd, 2009 No comments
#6 in our list of Favorite Chairs, The Barcelona Lounge Chair
The Barcelona Chair has become one of the few icons of Modern furniture that has been embraced by popular culture. Seen in movies like 007’s “From Russia with Love”, the Barcelona chair has been used as a statement of “Modern” in cinema, hotels and homes since the Mid 19th Century. With it’s addition, spaces become at once “modern”.
The Barcelona Chair was designed by the famed Architect Mies Van der Rohe (who’s commissions included the Seagram’s Building in New York) and his long time companion Lilly Reich. It has come to be known as the Barcelona chair because it was originally designed for the German Pavillion at the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929 that took place in that Spanish city.
Said to have been inspired by the transportable folding chairs of ancient times, the Barcelona chair is neither foldable nor easily transportable. Perhaps, one could in fact make a case for it being the first Post-Modern chair; since it is inspired by the forms of the past without being made like or used like the original design. Modern or Post-Modern, the Barcelona chair is nonetheless one of our ten favorite chairs.
Learn More About Mies Van Der Rohe and The Barcelona Lounge Chair:
Barcelona Lounge Chair @ Knoll.com
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NELSON BRIDGE’S LIST OF TOP TEN MODERN CHAIRS - #07 - The Bella Figura Chair
Posted on April 27th, 2009 No commentsThe Bella Figura Chair, #7 in our list of Most Favorite Modern Chairs
The Bella Figura Chair is particularly near and dear to our hearts at Nelson Bridge since it is one of our own. In 1991, our own Jonathan Nelson designed the Bella Figura for the Ultrasuede Ad Campaign “A Fabrication of your Imagination” just after his returning from study at Domus Academy in Milan.
Since then, this chair has become a staple in the original furniture offerings of Nelson Bridge.
Coming out of Nelson’s exposure to the “Memphis Movement” at Domus, the Bella Figura is recognizably Modern, but with a whimsical twist. The body of the chair is pure in form with a curvaceous and enveloping shape. The back legs splay out unlike the front legs, giving it the hoof-like stance of an animal.
“Bella Figura” is the Italian expression for “Keeping the good Face” and in that way the front face of the chair is deceptively simple. To see the Bella Figura from the front in a flat on view, is to see a million look-a-like chairs that have a similar front-on shape to the arm (Perhaps due in no small part to the widespread circulation of the Ultrasuede ad Campaign). And yet, as you walk around the Bella Figura, you find that it is far more complex in shape, it commands a dominant presence in the room and makes it one of our top 10 Favorites.
Learn More About Jonathan Nelson and The Bella Figura Chair
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NELSON BRIDGE’S LIST OF TOP TEN MODERN CHAIRS - #08 - The Kubus Club
Posted on April 20th, 2009 No comments
Perhaps the most copied, adapted and re-interpreted chair design of the 20th century, The Kubus club chair by Joseph Hoffman is the real deal.
Coming directly out of the Deco and Cubist movements of furniture and art, this chair, perhaps more than any other, embodies the principle of purity of form that typified that epoch.
Kubus is the chair that only the founder of the Wiener Werkstatte could have created. Born in 1870, Joseph Hoffman was an Architect that worked under Otto Wagner and was heavily influenced by the work of his contemporaries Rennie
Mackintosh (see Hoffman’s Fledermaus Chair) and the artist Gustav Klimt. The geometry of the chair is immediately recognizable. It is perhaps the platonic ideal of what a modern chair should be; it is an icon of the modern era.Learn More About Josef Hoffmann and The Kubus Club Chair:
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NELSON BRIDGE’S LIST OF TOP TEN MODERN CHAIRS - #09 - Eames Lounge Chair
Posted on April 13th, 2009 2 comments
This week brings us to our #09 favorite chair: The Eames Lounge Chair.
The Eames Lounge chair is one of the most recognizable original chair designs of the twentieth century. For us this was always the chair that “Uncle Joe” or “Dr. Morris” owned. We always loved that chair but we would never think to sit in it because it was their “Special Chair”. The Eames Chair holds a certain reverence in the design world as well as the world at large and therefore a list of important Modern chairs would not be complete without its addition.
In continuous production at Herman Miller since 1956, the Eames Lounge Chair was designed by the husband and wife team of Charles and Ray Eames and personally launched by them on Arlene Francis’ “Home” show broadcast on NBC (we can surely relate to the risks and benefits of working with a spouse, since Nelson Bridge is a husband and wife team of Jonathan & Denise Nelson). The Eames Lounge chair was constructed using cutting edge (for its time) molded plywood technology combined with relatively traditional upholstery. The result is a chair that is both old and new, hard and soft; a conflict of parts that resolves to create something completely new and groundbreaking.
Learn More About Charles and Ray Eames and The Eames Lounge Chair:
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NELSON BRIDGE’S LIST OF TOP TEN MODERN CHAIRS - #10 - Feltri Chair
Posted on April 6th, 2009 3 comments
Rather than based purely on the popularity of a chair, this list is more directed at the chairs that have had a strong cultural and directional impact on the design of chairs and their use.
With that in mind our #10 most favorite chair is “Feltri” by Gaetano Pesce.
Known for his more idiosyncratic furniture and Architecture, in this chair Gaetano has created what is at once a total departure from the norm of chair construction and yet comforting in its soft and flexible material and almost familiar form. This chair is built by infusing the basic felt material with resin at its base, to make the seat area structural, while leaving the top portion without resin so that it can be shaped and formed to the individual’s taste or need. Some of the designer’s earlier works were called “horrific in their beauty” because they were often created by the chance random drips of plastic or resin that made for an uneven and odd final form. The “Feltri” chair, by contrast, has a soft, over-riding beauty that belies its remarkable innovation and makes this Pesce chair, dare we say it, almost lovable.
Learn More About Gaetano Pesce and the Feltri Chair:
