See Part 1 here.
This is not a pipe: Magritte called it The Treachery of Images. More treachery below, taking on the same idea only this time with chairs. Chairs to confound your concept of what a chair should look like.
As we've noted before, when it comes to chair design—traditionally—it's mostly a conservative medium. Forms are followed from history, sometimes very ancient history, and tend to get repeated in endless iterations. New tends don't enter into the design vernacular much. And how long will this thrall to all things mid-century go on?
Be that as it may, let's look at chairs that draw their design inspiration from somewhere other than chair history: Chairs that take their influence from other parts of the design world. Something of the unexpected: Not always or necessarily beautiful, but different.
Not sure if these wall-mounted chairs above are even usable in this configuration but the concept is certainly... interesting.
The Beehive chair from Kiwi designer Graham Roebuck. The materials are described thusly: Made of Lakepine Zero low emitting MDF and polished in beeswax to the edges, while tepid White Formica high pressure laminate envelopes the perpendicular faces of the piece.
The Bloom Chair by Kenneth Cobonpue; Here's how one seller describes it: Deep soft folds of handmade microfibre stitched with a steel base in different fabric colors that pop! Very comfortable and very artsy. Or kind of like a meat-eating orchid, as someone once said.
This bowl-with-a-hole chair is from Dublin based Tierney Haines Architects:
Where they found the inspiration: Donald Knorr's award winning Knoll 132 from 1950, designed to be low cost with steel legs and an aluminum seat. The chair has been discontinued.
The Ball chair by Finn Eero Aarnio, ca. 1963:
An even more flowery take on the Saarinen Tulip chair, this one from Australian designer Sydney Feathersone, 1969: the Stem chair.
This Guadi chair from Dutch designer Bam Geenen takes inspiration from its namesake basing it upon the master's use of arches for optimum strength.
Here, barely a chair from Oki Sato by way of Nendo.
The Vermelha chair from the Brazilian design team of the Campana Brothers. The chair is a steel structure with hand woven and dyed cotton rope.
Designer Yangsoo Pyo created these Afro chairs out of steel wire coiled (think two-ring binder springs) into a giant Brillo pad. Despite its appearance, it's claimed that the chair is actually quite comfortable.
Oskar Zieta's Chippensteel chairs:
The chair as a Buick: The Maxell chair by Harald Belker. You won't be surprised to learn that Belker actually designs cars for Porsche and Mercedes Benz. The chair was reportedly inspired by the Maxell ads with the guy being blown away in the Le Corbusier chair.
Another barely there chair, this one designed by Verner Panton, another take on a chair done for Herman Miller in the 70s. Panton is considered to be one of Denmark's most influential 20th century furniture designers. As Denmark was one of the apogees of the Mid-Century, this is no small claim.
The Lodge chair by Baltasar Portillo:
The crouching Z-Chair by—who else?—Zaha Hadid:
More to come in Part 3.
All of those chair designs are so unique, I've never seen it before and The Beehive chair looks really interesting.