This exercise focused on creating 3D models of chairs and a table by well-known designers. The project also involved researching the design and assembling a brief on the designer, their work, and the specific pieces covered in the tutorial.
“People always say: ‘Why make another chair?’ To me, that’s like asking why we need another book or another song.”
Martino Gamper was born in 1971 in the German-speaking Italian province of South Tyrol. After apprenticing as a cabinet-maker in his teens, he convinced Michelangelo Pistoletto, one of the founders of Italy’s arte povera movement, to teach him sculpting. From there, he moved into design and was a student at London’s Royal College of Art and graduated as a furniture designer.
Gamper describes his style as Gesamtkunsthandwerk — a neologism meaning the fusing of artisanship and high style. In this he combines his background as a traditional cabinetmaker and the saturated and vibrant designs of Postmodernism
Gamper found international acclaim with his 2007 installation 100 Chairs in 100 Days. By creating a new chair every day by combining parts from existing chairs, he challenged standard design-world ideals of neatness and polished ‘good taste’. Furthermore, by giving new life to abandoned objects, Gamper questioned what’s discarded or overlooked, and why.
Seeing a need for seating at a local event, and refusing to buy cheap seating from Ikea, Gamper sought to create a unique solution derived from his friend Rainer Spehl’s Qoffee stool. Polyethylene pellets, rotated around a heated mold, form the outer shell of the stool. From this, the Arnold Stool was born.
Staying true to his design language, Gamper has continued to experiment with the stool by adding juxtaposing seats and backs to its simplistic design.
The table was designed for Eileen Gray’s sister so she could eat breakfast in bed. It is built of tubular steel that is curved to form an incomplete circle for the base and a complete circle for the table’s surface. Two tubes, reminiscent of a trombone’s shape, connect the base and the surface on side allowing the surface top to hover over a bed. These tubes protrude from past the surface and connect forming an angular handle. Holes in one of the tubes enables the user to adjust the height of the table with a pin.
The table’s surface, while now made of glass, was originally made of acetate greatly reducing the weight of the table. The lightness combined with the built-in handle, allowed the table to be moved about with ease.
The cantilever design was likely inspired by architect Frank Lloyd Wright who pioneered the technique in his construction. The concept of a cantilever in furniture was first publicly displayed by Mart Stam. Gray was influenced by the Dutch De Stijl movement and perhaps even by a table that one of its members, Gerrit Reitveld, designed which had only one leg on the side.
interior plan should not be the incidental result of
Gray’s earlier designs used luxurious materials such as ivory and exotic woods. Influenced by the modernist designs by Le Corbusier and the use of tubular steel as a building element, Gray’s pieces started to take on a simpler and more industrial approach.
Along with furniture designed for the E 1027 house, the Non Conformist chair and the Bibendum chair (named after the Michelin tire mascot) are some of Gray’s most recognizable designs.
vandalized the house by painting murals on the walls. Perhaps this was a case of the student upstaging the master.
During World War II, Gray was interned as a foreign national, and her houses were looted. Many of her drawings, models, architectural notes, and personal papers were destroyed by bombing. German soldiers used the walls of E-1027 for target practice.
After a series of owners, the house was left to deteriorate, but fortunately restoration efforts have been initiated after renewed interested in Gray and her work.
Sources: https://www.wmagazine.com/story/eileen-gray https://metropolismag.com/viewpoints/e1027-villa-eileengray-crowdfund-preservation/ https://ounodesign.com/2008/12/24/eileen-gray-e1027-house/
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MATT MAST • GRAPHIC + INTERIOR DESIGN