GSA Showcase 2021

// Gerrit Rietveld, 1934 Crate chair, C.1942 shown in situé with Alvar Aalto, Artek, Stool 60, C.1923. & Robert Dudley Best, Bestlite, BL10 Wall Lamp, C.1930. //

Rietveld’s Crate Chair (1934) is one of my personal acmes of design, demonstrating the correlation between the ideology of the Modernist movement and D.I.Y. design, a clear knowledge and appreciation is shown for wood and joinery in the simple but pleasing cross of planks which make up the arms and legs of the Crate Chair. While it’s angled seat and high back allows for a comfortable experience. A simplistic beauty with a comfortable purpose. Its design was with a particular interest in using recycled materials. Using left over wood planks from wooden crates that were made to transport goods.

// Crate Chair (1934) shown alongside, Erno Goldfinger stool c.1937 //

// Updated Oskar Strnad daybed c.1910 shown along side Ernö Goldfinger stool c.1937, Tolomeo Aluminium Lamp // OsKar Strnad is a name while not large was an influential man of renaissance, architect, stage designer, furniture designer and lecturer he spent his career creating comparisons between professions and was an early experimenter in the modernist movement, playing with new materials and structure to achive unsusual and sometimes rather questionable designs but all in the progress of modernism. In my archival research I came across A photo Strnad's House 13, amongst the manufactured chrome furniture and plywood I was drawn to what is a very unusual daybed which after further research I concluded was made custom for House 13. Thick timbers create a deep frame covered with netting to create the back rest and side panels aswell as the seat which had been covered with upholstery. I had never seen an item of furniture this era with such a playful construction. Since its plans had been lost and the sofa lost in WW2, I felt it was a fitting tribute to recreate the sofa. Breaking down its supposed structure for layperson and developing a graphic language which translated into the modern interior.

Sedia 1 Chair from the Autoprogettazione collection, is arguably the most recognized piece from the collection. Its light weight yet robust, with understated overlapping details creating an elegant structure which compliments modern and traditional interiors.

For Sale: price on request

// Marcel Breuer canvas chairs 1922 set along side Gerald Summers Y leg table c.1930, jug by H. Loveridge & Co., England c.1910 // A pioneer of the modernist movement and protégé of Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer is equally celebrated for his architecture as he is for furniture. Breuer was a student at the Bauhaus in the early 1920s. His entire body of work, both architecture and furniture, embodies the driving Bauhaus objective to reconcile art and industry. Making his name one of the elite names of the early modernist era. Marcel understood materiality and although his forms were complex in execution his use of materiality was simple, allowing timber and chrome to do its best job, giving it the roll of support and structure, playing with the liner clean forms both materials can be used to create. Before stretching malleable more tactile fabrics such as wool or linen and later in his career leather. Materials which naturally sculpt to the body’s form when put under pressure.

"sitting up straight in times of hardship"