2nd August 2019

Why do designers love to design chairs?

- written by Anya

A chair, according to designer Carl Clerkin, “is the piece of furniture that we are most intimate with, the most human of objects, it is highly demanding in terms of structure, ergonomics, comfort, use and abuse, it should be super strong, but at the same time elegant and efficient, simple as well as sophisticated and sculptural.”

Designing a chair, and doing it well, is therefore, again according to Carl, “the ultimate challenge.” Challenges, we believe, keep design interesting.

Carl Clerkin is one of six designers that this summer have been tasked with creating a chair that specifically responds to a particular aspect of a room in Fenton House, a National Trust property nestled in the leafy surrounds of Hampstead, north London.

Wanting to stage a unique design intervention at the property during London Design Festival in September, the National Trust commissioned designer Gitta Gschwendtner to curate the exhibition. She then invited five designers – Michael Marriott, Frith Kerr, Carl Clerkin, Maisie Broadhead and Nina Tolstrup – to each design a seat. She too will also design a chair as part of the project.

In the below interview we asked each designer just two questions. One question proved easier to answer than the other. It seems that getting a designer to choose a single favourite chair is like asking a parent to choose their favourite child.

Jens Harald Quistgaard's Sculptor's Stool

Nina Tolstrup

If you had to pick a favourite chair of all time, what would it be and why?

Jens Harald Quistgaard’s Sculptor's Stool. Quistgaard was a Danish sculptor and designer, mostly known for his work for the American company Danish Designs – he worked for them from 1954 and into the 1980s. His Sculpture Chair is one of his lesser-known pieces but I love its sense of awkwardness. It is a chair to sit and rest on for a moment of contemplation, and then to get up and get on with work. It is perfect for the workshop – robust and small and blends into the workshop environment without being too much of a statement.

Why do you believe designers are so drawn to designing chairs?

I always wondered about this myself. I guess it is the question of if the ultimate chair is yet to be designed? Designing a functional and comfortable chair is a challenge. I think designers are drawn to designing chairs because there is so much scope for expression – not only in terms of the practical aspects such as function, structure, and manufacturability – but also the sculptural and expressive language. A chair is open for so many forms of expression which is why I think is so attractive to designers.

Hans Wegner’s Valet Chair

Carl Clerkin

If you had to pick a favourite chair of all time, what would it be and why?

Hans Wegner’s Valet Chair. It seems an odd choice given that I have never sat in one – ergonomics being, for me, a critical aspect – but I’m assuming Wegner would have got the appropriate comfort and proportions right. I would stick an image of this chair to the inside cover of my sketchbooks while I was studying furniture design at college, it was there as a reminder of the values that I hoped to impart in my own work. It’s a very obedient object, one that has been designed from a good understanding of the rituals it supports and the context that it has to work within.

This chair has real character and human qualities. Just like a loyal butler or valet, it takes care of its master’s unworn clothing and accessories, dressing as they undress and keeping things just so until tomorrow….

Unlike a lot of multi-functional furniture, The Valet Chair seems perfectly balanced, content in both its intended uses.

Why do you believe designers are so drawn to designing chairs?

As furniture designers we enjoy a challenge, we need some criteria to respond to, some needs and objectives to design from, designing a chair in its simplest form provides these a plenty. It is the piece of furniture that we are most intimate with, the most human of objects, it is highly demanding in terms of structure, ergonomics, comfort, use and abuse, it should be super strong, but at the same time elegant and efficient, simple as well as sophisticated and sculptural. Designing a chair well is the ultimate challenge and how we deal with all of this is, in the end, how we are defined as designers.

Borge Morgensen’s J39

Michael Marriott

If you had to pick a favourite chair of all time, what would it be and why?

It is so difficult to choose just one. Maybe today I’m going for Borge Morgensen’s J39.

Why do you believe designers are so drawn to designing chairs?

Because chairs are complex, tricky to get right, and so characterful. To quote Peter Smithson [the architect]: “Of all the pieces of furniture, the chair is the most able to carry, like some portable shrine, the essence of the style of the period. People rarely collect cupboards or dressing tables (or stools???), but to collect chairs is common. It is probable that we see them as domestic pets … They have legs, feet, arms, backs, they are symmetrical in one direction; like animals, like ourselves.

Gerrit Rietveld's Crate Chair

Gitta Gschwendtner

If you had to pick a favourite chair of all time, what would it be and why?

I honestly don’t have a favourite chair. Pressed to single out one today, I would choose the Crate Chair by Gerrit Rietveld. Firstly, I am a huge admirer of Rietveld, a furniture designer who also designed buildings. Normally it’s the architects who turn to furniture design, not the other way around. Secondly, I enjoy the simple crate construction of the chair and the fact that Rietveld published it as an “open source” instruction. On a personal level I love the chair because a friend of mine followed the instructions to make a pair of them as a wedding present for my husband and I, undoubtedly making it my favourite chair in the house.

Why do you believe designers are so drawn to designing chairs?

The chair is the one piece of furniture that is most closely related to the human shape. Even though this close relationship to the body arguably restricts its proportions, there is a lot of scope for different chair designs. The chair offers not just interesting structural challenges, it’s also a perfect vehicle for narrative. It’s material, construction, colour and shape convey information well beyond its functionality.

Maisie Broadhead

If you had to pick a favourite chair of all time, what would it be and why?

My work doesn’t generally involve making chairs, so currently its a soft and comfortable Ikea armchair in my studio. It is my favourite for no other reason than it takes the weight off while I’m having a break and a chance to think.

Why do you believe designers are so drawn to designing chairs?

My mother and I did a collaboration together a few years back inspired by empty chairs depicted in different historical paintings. Interestingly, once you start looking, chairs have been featured by different painters many times over the years. I think it’s because chairs have a uniquely human quality to them compared to other man-made objects. In paintings by Vermeer or Hammershoi they seem to weirdly reflect a human presence and absence at the same time.

Konstantin Grcic’s Chair

Frith Kerr

If you had to pick a favourite chair of all time, what would it be and why?

Konstantin Grcic’s Chair One with concrete base because it doesn’t pretend to be comfortable.

Why do you believe designers are so drawn to designing chairs?

Because we all need to sit down.