100 Chairs in 100 Days
by Bonnie Alter, London on 02.15.07
Martino Gamper has been constructing a chair a day and will continue to do so until he has made one hundred of them. Over a year and a half period, he collected a stockpile of discarded, dumped, and donated chairs from the streets of London. From this collection he has recycled, re-invented and reconstructed new chairs which are a mix of all the parts. Because he has set himself the challenge of completing one a day, he is working with speed and ingenuity. He says that it is like music; completely improvisational. Since he believes that “there is no perfect chair”; he is working with the idea of a chair and creating interesting combinations. The chairs combine the legs of one, the seat of another—some are quite witty, others quite ugly. He has chosen twenty nine of these chairs to be exhibited at the Design Museum. They are shown interspersed with 30 iconic chairs from the Museum’s collection, from which he is drawing inspiration. Some pay homage to a particular designer, whilst others show new directions. :: Design Museum
Judging by the photo, quantity has triumphed over quality.
the eco design movement just went backwards a few decades!
terrible!!!
if you think that quantity triumphing over quality is an issue, you are obviously disabled by the thought that every design must be perfect, and that there is no point in producing a design if it has a fault. 99% of every design will have a fault according to someone. Here gamper has freed himself of this and chosen to produce the majority of his ideas, people will find faults, but every chair will have its owner. It is a treat to have such a raw design process exhibited.
I agree with the above statement, I was recently part of a furniture class at the Ontario College of Art and Design, and for the entire semester we were encouraged to take a found chair, or related furniture object and 'mediate' it by changing it in any way we saw fit. It was an excellent course, it was ironically the same process as Gambert follows. We first analyzed the construction and materials of the found object and applied those insights to two chair designs.
Learning design is not about 'eliteism' or some kind of doctrine set out, to restrict ideas. If someone wants to create a sustainable or 'ecohitler' chair, they have already fooled themselves. Creating anything 'sustainable' is creating more waste, according to eco eliteists. There is no need for another chair in the world, so why not learn from our mistakes and teach design through them.
i kind of agree that the design has been sacrificed...
who would want to sit in that chair? it would catch on your sleeves on the not-so-subtle slices in the uprights and the screw holding them together!