- Product:
- Organic Design High back armchair
- Manufacturer:
- Wright
- Architonic ID:
- 4105990
- Country:
- United States
- Category:
- Furnishings
- Address
- Telephone
- Website
Key facts
Product description
distribute the winning designs. The winner of the competition was seating developed by Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen. Three-dimensional compound curves and overall form of the Eames and Saarinen seating pointed to a new direction for modern design. The catalog for the show notes "a significant innovation was that, in the case of chairs by Saarinen and Eames, a manufacturing method never previously applied to furniture was employed to make a light structural shell consisting of layers of plastic, glue and wood veneers molded in three-dimensional forms."
Working from small models made of copper, the complex wood shell of the chair was painstakingly created first in wire and plaster. A negative form in thin wood strips was then made from which a cast iron mold had been created. The wood shell was then hand-glued into the iron form. The molding process took place at the Haskelite Corporation. The shell was then trimmed, fitted with rubber, finished, and upholstered by Heywood Wakefield with woven fabric by Marli Ehrman, chosen to compliment the design.
While limited production was done for the models in the Organic Design show at MoMA, full-scale production was never realized due to America's impending involvement in World War II.
The importance of Eames and Saarinen's seating design was immediately recognized with the chair winning first prize for Category A - Seating for a Living Room. Marli Ehrman's upholstery also won first prize for Woven Fabrics. The designs created by Eames and Saarinen for the Organic Design competition directly influenced the direction both designers would take in their future careers, as well as dramatically influencing the design of modern seating. Not only does this design clearly point the way to the Eames' molded plywood chairs and Saarinen's Womb chair, but the expression of compound curves in the seating element was to be widely adopted in innumerable chairs for the next two decades.
The High back Organic Design chair is largest and most complex of the seating forms created for the competition; it is likely that only three examples of the chair were ever produced. Unparalleled in its influence on seating design, the Organic Design chair is clearly one of the most important chairs of the century.Exhibited:
Organic Design, Museum of Modern Art, 1941
Eames Design, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum and Suntory Museum, Osaka, Japan, 2001-2002
Literature:
Organic Design in Home Furnishings, Noyes, pp. 12-15 discusses the construction of the chair
100 Masterpieces from the Vitra Design Museum Collection, von Vegesack, pg. 142 illustrates the chair in a period photo from the Organic Design exhibition
Working from small models made of copper, the complex wood shell of the chair was painstakingly created first in wire and plaster. A negative form in thin wood strips was then made from which a cast iron mold had been created. The wood shell was then hand-glued into the iron form. The molding process took place at the Haskelite Corporation. The shell was then trimmed, fitted with rubber, finished, and upholstered by Heywood Wakefield with woven fabric by Marli Ehrman, chosen to compliment the design.
While limited production was done for the models in the Organic Design show at MoMA, full-scale production was never realized due to America's impending involvement in World War II.
The importance of Eames and Saarinen's seating design was immediately recognized with the chair winning first prize for Category A - Seating for a Living Room. Marli Ehrman's upholstery also won first prize for Woven Fabrics. The designs created by Eames and Saarinen for the Organic Design competition directly influenced the direction both designers would take in their future careers, as well as dramatically influencing the design of modern seating. Not only does this design clearly point the way to the Eames' molded plywood chairs and Saarinen's Womb chair, but the expression of compound curves in the seating element was to be widely adopted in innumerable chairs for the next two decades.
The High back Organic Design chair is largest and most complex of the seating forms created for the competition; it is likely that only three examples of the chair were ever produced. Unparalleled in its influence on seating design, the Organic Design chair is clearly one of the most important chairs of the century.Exhibited:
Organic Design, Museum of Modern Art, 1941
Eames Design, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum and Suntory Museum, Osaka, Japan, 2001-2002
Literature:
Organic Design in Home Furnishings, Noyes, pp. 12-15 discusses the construction of the chair
100 Masterpieces from the Vitra Design Museum Collection, von Vegesack, pg. 142 illustrates the chair in a period photo from the Organic Design exhibition