The idea of this series of texts is to comment about the history of 12 remarkable solid wood chairs that somehow are a part of 20th century design history, so far five titles are available.
Click on the titles bellow and check this five first issues:
1. Lina Bo Bardi – Frei Egidio Chair
2. Josef Hoffmann – Sitzmaschine
The Steltman chair is one of my favorites, its timeless design and uniqueness, combined with a brutalism and dinamical approach are one of the greatest achievements of this furniture master of the past century. It was, in fact, one of his lasts ideas, one year after the chair was designed Rietveld passed away.
Originally leather upholstered, the Steltman Chair was designed in 1963 by the Dutch Architect and Der Stijl member Gerrit Thomas Rietveld, for Steltman Jewlery in The Hague, The Netherlands. The solid wood version was released after Rietveld’s death by his former assistant Gerard van de Groenekan, and became more popular than the original leather version.
Only two symmetrical units in white faux leather were produced to furnish the jewlery. They were used close to the counter in order to approach couples looking for wedding rings, the two chairs could also symbolized this union once they were combined.
Soon after the refurbishing, however, became clear that the conservative Steltman’s clients didn’t enjoy too much the avant-garde lines of Rietveld’s furniture, and a couple of years after, the new furniture was replaced. Nevertheless, in today’s new shops, Steltman is using this once discredited project, again, proving the timeless force of Rietveld’s design.
What is really unique and breathtaking of this design is the tension created by the three simple profiles that forms the chair, one climbing over the other, creating a dynamic force that seems to freeze the chair in a lapse of moment.
With the rotation of the three profiles and the use of a equal section for all of them we have a sense of dinamic, yet freezed composition, like the Matrix classic 360° overview scene . Something not seen in Rietveld’s other main creations such as the red and blue or berlin chair, that had a much more NeoPlastical touch than Steltmans dinamical brutalist composition.
The chair was re-edited several times after the original release, the most recent edition was made by the Dutch manufacturer Spectrum, in 2014. It was a limited edition of 100 units, 50 left sided and 50 right sided, with extreme accuracy regarding the original project and costing around 2000 euros each.
The austrian architect Josef Hoffmann was one of the leaders of the Wiener Werkstätte, and his model 607 was designed for the Purkersdorf Sanatorium in Vienna, one of the first relevant projects that he and his group were commissioned. The “total design” concept was used and developed on the project, each component of the building from its facade until the furniture were carefully designed by the group.
Decades before Le Corbusier started to advertise his “Machine for living in” concept in his Manifesto, Hoffmann was already concerned about designing a piece with a exposed structure and a rational simplification of the composition elements, and also a celebration of the machine culture, something that will underline most of the movements of the early 20th century.
One source of inspiration for the chair can be identified in the Morris Chair, designed by Philp Webb, from the English collaborative Arts and Crafts, which clarifies the influence of this movement in the Vienna Secession. The main influence, however, was functional: the recliner system, but in aesthetic terms Hoffmann’s chair is way far more unique.
Like an old-school race car cockpit, or Dick Dastardly Wacky Races’ car the chair emulates an aerodinamic machine ready to full its gears and run wild, in an allegorical machine cult. Pure, ma non troppo, there are several ornaments at the chair body: it brings at its arms and back, clear Mackintosh inspired geometrical cuts and in the foot, unions and recliner system, wooden spheres like the dots often encarved in legs and arms of XIX century furniture. A statement of the modern thoughts mixed with some residual old influence make this chair a important chapter of this turning point period of art and design.
Built in bent beechwood and sycamore panels, the chair is amongst the collections of the main designs museums, from Vitra to MoMA . Josef Hoffmann would never guess, but a vintage 607 chair, can today, reach dozens of thousands euros in auctions allover Europe. That is what we can call a timeless worth design.
External links:
The idea of this series of posts, (click here to see other issues) – starting here with my brazilian architecture heroin Lina Bo Bardi, is to comment about the history of this 12 remarkable chairs that somehow are a part of 20th century design history.
Brother Egídio chair was designed in 1987 by Lina Bo Bardi , Marcelo Suzuki and Marcelo Ferraz, for the Gregório de Mattos Theather in Salvador, Brazil. It was meant to be “a light and foldable chair in order to meet the needs of storage and to be easily transported by the audience”.
The inspirations came from the simplicity of XV century’s early Florentian foldable chairs, it is also a reference of the chairs often encountered in brazilian monasteries, and its name is a tribute to Brother Egídio, who invited Lina to design Uberlandia’s Holy Spirit Church in the 70’s.
Brother Egídios Chair is made of Brazilian Pine or Tauari Wood and it is produced until today by Marcenaria Baraúna (founded by Suzuki and Ferraz, in 1986) and it is edited by brazilian furniture retailer Dpot. In 2016, the chair was incorporated to MoMA’s design collection.
The most remarkable and unique feature of Egídio’s design is its minimal and humble approach of the foldable chair theme. No more than three rows of equally cutted slats of wood were needed to get a chair that once is folded occupies less than five percent of its operational volume. A accurate geometry that reminds a japanese design heritage with a franciscan catholic touch. Less is foldable.
The “hard confort” of the chair, however, is no more in use at its original place. After 7 years closed, the Gregorio de Mattos Theater passed through a renovation. It was re-opened in 2015 and without any mercy, the MoMA selected chair was no longer there. For some reason Lina’s chair had been replaced by an ordinary upholstered-conference-stakable-chair, as Lina herself would say: the “pseudo comfort” times strikes again.
External links:
dudamachiavelli.wordpress.com 
/GothicRevivalChair-589d230a5f9b58819caf8b22.jpg){kind=link}