We have been trying to get to an exhibit at the Palm Springs Art Museum Architecture & Design Center for years. We knew the timing was right for this one.
"The Modern Chair follows the development of the modern chair, highlighting its evolution and progression from two outstanding early examples-a bent wood Thonet classic from the dawn of the 20th century and the first cantilevered chair by Mart Stam of the Bauhaus school-through the fertile and innovative mid-century years and concluding with contemporary specimens. New industrial materials, technological and stylistic advances pushed chair design forward during the last century faster than at any time before."
This is Gebrüder Thonet's famous “B-9” bentwood armchair (circa 1905), which is widely considered the first modern chair. Le Corbusier frequently used it in his early architecture as there was no other modern furniture readily available at the time.If you were to guess when this chair was designed would it have been 1918? Gerrit Rietveld's Red Blue Chair surprised.Marcel Breuer's the Wassily Chair (1927) is one of the most radical pieces of early modernist furniture. It deconstructs a traditional overstuffed club chair to its basic outline, removing all the stuffed upholstery. The body of the sitter almost appears to float in space, cradled in the slings and not touching the steel framework. The chair was nicknamed the Wassily after artist Wassily Kandinsky, Breuer's good friend and fellow teacher at the Bauhaus. A groundbreaking example of intellectual modernism which forever changed the course of furniture design. I think this was the one that impressed Steve the most!
Atop the Mt. Olympus of Danish furniture design sits "The Master of the Chair," Hans Wegner. His numerous designs are universally recognized as masterpieces of craftsmanship and comfort. Wegner's labor intensive and smartly engineered chairs take organic modernism to its highest level. For his Round Chair (right), eleven different pieces of shaped wood are cleverly combined to form the appearance of a continuous semi-circle of wood. In 1950, Interiors magazine declared it "the most beautiful chair in the world." Richard Nixon and John Kennedy sat in these chairs for their famous 1960 television debates.
Gio Ponti's 1951 Superleggera ("beyond light" it weighs a little more than 3 pounds) is a marvel of style and engineering. The chair is strong and sturdy (it can hold 350 lbs) despite its delicate appearance. One of the most famous chair advertisements in design history features a sharply dressed boy easily lifting this chair with one finger.
The biggest surprise was Frank Gehry's Beaver Chair and Ottoman, 1987. This chair offers perhaps the most extreme example of the disparity between the cost of construction material (prosaic and utilitarian corrugated cardboard), and the current auction price of this highly collectible design (upwards of $12,000 and climbing). Irreverent, ingenious, and reflective of Frank Gehry's outlaw rebellious L.A. style, his cardboard series, Easy Edges, was not only low cost at the time and structurally sound, but above all artistic and revolutionary.
This exceptional exhibit opened our eyes to the artistry and importance of the chair in our lives. Architect Le Corbusier said of the chair, "Chairs are architecture, sofas are bourgeois." Cool stuff.
Our last stop was to visit the infamous Big Marilyn. Forever Marilyn is a giant statue of Marilyn Monroe designed by Seward Johnson (of the Johnson & Johnson family whose story needs to be read). The statue has been displayed in a variety of locations in the United States, as well as in Australia. This is its second visit to Palm Springs.The 26-foot-tall, 34,000-pound sculpture, manufactured of painted stainless steel and aluminum, is a super-sized tribute to Marilyn Monroe's iconic scene from Billy Wilder's 1955 infidelity comedy, The Seven-Year Itch, with the figure capturing the instant a blast of air from a NYC subway grate raises her white dress. She is definitely worth the photo opportunities.Palms Springs continues to be one of those places that draws us. It is diverse, unique and only 68 miles from our Temecula home.
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Our last stop was to visit the infamous Big Marilyn. Forever Marilyn is a giant statue of Marilyn Monroe designed by Seward Johnson (of the Johnson & Johnson family whose story needs to be read). The statue has been displayed in a variety of locations in the United States, as well as in Australia. This is its second visit to Palm Springs.
The 26-foot-tall, 34,000-pound sculpture, manufactured of painted stainless steel and aluminum, is a super-sized tribute to Marilyn Monroe's iconic scene from Billy Wilder's 1955 infidelity comedy, The Seven-Year Itch, with the figure capturing the instant a blast of air from a NYC subway grate raises her white dress. She is definitely worth the photo opportunities.
1 comments:
I have not seen that Marilyn statue before. It’s pretty amazing.
I have a ticket for the architecture museum. We will have to check it out. Palm Springs is the best!
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