Requirements were fairly simple: The chair must be well-crafted, sculptural, comfortable and quiet.
The winning entry was designed by the Barber Osgerby design studio, run by partners Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby. The chair's vertical spine echoes the spines of books on the shelves. It forms a strong back that is attached to a horseshoe-shaped base, making the chair silent in use. The seat's circular form repeats the shape of the base. The designers knew that the rear view of the chair was what most people would see when it was in use, so they took care to make it especially attractive. Isokon Plus will manufacture the chair.
The winner was chosen from 60 entries, including runners-up by Matthew Hilton of SCP Ltd. and Amanda Levete of Herman Miller.
From designersandbooks.com
Photographs by Jamie Smith
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| Barber Osgerby's winning chair pictured inside the Bodleian Library designersandbooks.com |
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| Winning design barberosgerby.com |
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| Winning design and runners-up l to r: Barber and Osgerby, Levete and Hilton |
How interesting, thanks for the info. The chair looks like a winner indeed although I wonder about comfort.
ReplyDeleteFunny, the runner-up on the right looks like some of the MCM ones I've seen in my school. I don't think it's very original.
To be honest, none of the chairs look very comfortable to me, but they must be, since that was one of the rules of the contest. What surprises me is that modern design was specified.
DeleteVery interesting, Dana. I like the thought that went into the design, it's very appealing visually. I hope it's comfortable!
ReplyDeleteHaving been a librarian, I found it interesting that "quiet" was one of the requirements.
DeleteFrank Lloyd Wright designed the barrel chair in 1904, this is a revised takeoff on it. Not the first time designers have copied other chairs.
ReplyDeleteI guess there are only so many ways to make a chair. After a while, you run out of geometric shapes and numbers of legs you can put on them. I thought when I saw all three that they resembled earlier well-known chairs or combinations thereof. Still, it's a beautiful chair.
DeleteI agree, most new chair designs look familiar. I guess when aspects like comfort, stackability, durability, construction and aesthetics are considered, re-design is often a result. There is no excuse for knock- offs, but I find that an evolution of a design can be quite interesting, especially when new technology makes new aspects of the design possible. I don't think it's even possible not to be inspired by earlier works, after all we don't live in a vacuum. But there's a big difference between copying a design and being inspired by it. I'm drifting, it's an interesting topic:-) I think the winner looks amazing!! The pictures inside the library are gorgeous too!
ReplyDeleteI wrote a series of six posts called "You Look So Familiar," in which I examined pieces that look very much alike, as well as a series of three posts called "Is It Real," in which I looked at reproductions and knockoffs from the point of view of the collector, the manufacturer and the heir of a designer. The world of design abounds with look-alikes.
DeleteOf the thousands of chair designs there might be 20 to 30 types that these could all fit into. Would be nice to see a book comparing similar chairs. Very few chairs could be called landmarks in design. The Wassily tubular steel chair and the Eames fiberglass chair because of new fabrication methods.
ReplyDeleteWhen I wrote that series "You Look So Familiar," I had no problem quickly coming up with half a dozen categories of modern chairs that contain many look-alikes. I'd say you're right that innovations in materials or manufacturing processes are likely to be the only really radical changes in chairs. After all, the human body just bends in so many directions, so there's not much we can do about the shape of chairs.
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