INNOCENCE
Looking back, I think it all started in Flushing Meadows, New York. The year was 1964 and I had reached the palindromic age of 11. My father, then in his mid-thirties, was, as always, well informed and ever curious about the world around him. Voracious reader, it is very likely that he came across some article in TIME or LIFE that piqued his interest and so it was that one summer day he informed me that we were headed for the 1964 New York City World’s Fair. This would be a “boys’ trip” with my uncle Dino coming for the ride and my mother staying behind with Andy, my young brother.
I knew nothing of the existence of design or architecture of course and the excitement I felt at the time was no doubt the result of childish curiosity rather than serious contemplation. However, some of the more vivid memories I retain of this event most certainly represent the primitive awakenings of my esthetic consciousness. Walking onto the fairgrounds for me was like stepping into the future. Although much of what I was to see went straight over my head, I realized that I was witnessing something very special indeed.
The 1964 New York City World’s Fair, held in Flushing Meadows Park, NY, was different as it was the first and only significant world exhibition ever to have sanction withheld by the Bureau International des Expositions, the Paris body that governs World Expos. The organizers of the Fair were aggressive New York businessmen who hoped the event would be an economic boon to the City. They had chosen as the theme of the Fair “Peace Through Understanding” and even with the lack of an official sanction from the BIE managed to attract quite a number of international participants (Spain, Vatican City, Japan, Sweden, Mexico, Austria and Denmark to name a few). The stars of the show though were the corporate participants: IBM, General Motors, Westinghouse, Bell, Dupont, Parker Pen and SC Johnson (of Johnson’s wax fame). These corporations had the money and they were out to put on a show.
The Vatican Pavilion included Michelangelo’s La Pieta. Although I did not know it then, this is the only time La Pieta has ever left the confines of the Vatican. Viewing, of course was very controlled: we stood on a moving sidewalk, in itself a first for me, and gawked at the masterpiece as it went from left to right across our visual field. I was impressed but probably not half as impressed as my dad since he knew just about everything there was to know about the renaissance.
I later realized however that far more prescient for me would be the IBM Corporation Pavilion. Charles Eames had collaborated with Eero Saarinen to come up with a concept for the IBM Pavilion and Eames was responsible for exhibition material, film presentations, graphics and pavilion signage. This was the beginning of the information age and Eames set out to demonstrate how computers would become part of our everyday lives.
The first thing that struck me was the structure called the “Ovoid Theater”. This was an elevated egg-shaped cinema where the audience watched a multi-screen presentation called THINK that had been entirely created by the Eames Office. What I remember most is that we sat in a grandstand directly below the Ovoid Theater and listened to the host of the show who had been lowered from the belly of the theater on a tiny futuristic podium as if by magic. Then, the whole grandstand we were seated in rose into the belly of the theater where we watched the show. Impressive especially for an 11 yo.
Also in the IBM Pavilion was an exhibit called MATHEMATICA that traced the history of mathematics and illustrated many of the important mathematical concepts and quirks. I was fascinated by the various displays although many of them went far beyond my knowledge of mathematics. At the time, I had no idea that MATHEMATICA was Eames’ brainchild. Two weeks ago, some 43 years later, I found myself in the MATHEMATICA exhibit at the Boston Museum of Science. This exhibit is an exact duplicate of the original 1964 MATHEMATICA and was installed in 1981 complete with the original post-modern design elements.
I am convinced that the wonders of the 1964 Worlds Fair planted a seed in me that quickly took hold; from that moment, I became interested in why things were as they were and what made some objects more appealing than others. Now at 11, I was still a child and as such found very little outlet for these early feelings. This would soon change.
Then of course came Expo 67, arguably one of the greatest and best-attended World Expositions ever held. Like many people in the Montreal area, I had a season pass to Expo and over the course of the summer I managed to explore every square meter of the grounds. With the ’64 World’s Fair fresh in my mind, I was eager to catch another glimpse into the future and Expo did not disappoint.
In terms of architecture, innovation was everywhere. HABITAT 67 was a building and living concept by Montreal architect Moshe Safdie. A complex of interlocking concrete living modules, HABITAT 67 combined the independence of individual dwellings with the convenience of apartment living. I was also impressed by the HABITAT furniture designed for the building. Habitat chairs were especially futuristic.
A number of pavilions really broke the mold. Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome formed the American Pavilion. The German pavilion was a multi-peaked tent of steel netting and translucent plastic. Canada had an inverted pyramid and the USSR a huge glass structure facing a gigantic hammer and sickle sculpture. The Netherlands Pavilion had an exterior made of 56 km of tubular aluminum and the very impressive British Pavilion a magnificent white tower giving the building the appearance of a futuristic fort.
The French Pavilion is still in use today as Le Casino de Montreal. I retain vivid memories of this pavilion primarily for the unique and in some ways “space age” furniture on exhibition within it. Two chairs that are now very familiar to me are Oliver Mourgue’s Djinn series (of 2001: A Space Odyssey fame) and Pierre Paulin’s Ribbon Chair.
AWAKENING
I take you now to 1972. I was 19 and in the last year of my collegiate course (CEGEP) at McGill university. The seed had grown and I was now finding my way around the world of Bach, jazz and art. That year, my dad and I took another road trip south to visit the groundbreaking New York Museum of Modern Art exhibition Italy: The New Domestic Landscape. Italy had been at the forefront of industrial design for some time and MoMA’s exhibition was intended to ratify the leading position of Italian creativity as well as highlight Italian designers' focus on encouraging a free, informal lifestyle. All the greats of the time participated: Gaetano Pesce, Joe Colombo, Vico Magistrati, Mario Bellini, Richard Sapper, Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni, Marco Zanuso, Ettore Sottsass and Gae Aulenti to name only some of them.
I was blown away by what I saw. This was cutting-edge stuff: new, innovative materials, multi-function units and modular urban environments all designed for a rapidly changing world. This exhibition convinced me that good design could be widely applied in our everyday lives to the betterment of all. This was the start of my design addiction.
In 1974, I traveled to Boston with my good friend Gruri Karady where we stayed with his uncle, an architect and design aficionado. This is the very first time I got to experience what it was like to actually live with good design. This guy had surrounded himself with many of the classics of the time. His favorites were Harry Bertoia’s welded steel lattice chair series including the Diamond Chair and the Bird Lounge Chair. We had dinner in Eero Saarinen Tulip chairs around a large Saarinen Dining Table of white marble. I was a baby in a candy store.
In 1978, I married Simone Guillon. We were medical students and, as is often the case for young professionals, very naïve about the real world. For reasons I won’t go into, the marriage lasted less than 2 years. During those 2 years however, my love for design got an unexpected boost. Turns out that Jacques Guillon, Simone’s dad, was an icon in the world of industrial design. It took me some time to find this out and much of what I know about him I learned later on.
Jacques settled in Montreal, Canada after the War and after attending McGill University, he founded Jacques S. Guillon & Associates Ltd. (later to be known as GSM Ltd.). By combining the disciplines of industrial design, interior design, graphic design and architecture his firm managed to meet a wide variety of client demands. Consequently, the firm won contracts with such prestigious companies as Air France, Air Canada, The Aluminum Company of Canada Limited, Morgan Trust Company, and Canadian General Electric Company. Guillon created the symbol and signage system for the Montreal Métro, developed the coachwork for the subway trains and designed an illuminated advertising display unit for the subway and the buses, an idea copied in many North American cities. His work in the transportation industry included the design of the Alouette snowmobile (ridden by Gilles Villeneuve during his snowmobile racing career) and the L.C.R. high-speed train for Via Rail (Senior designer: Morley Smith). The firm participated in the creation of the scientific exhibit at the Pavilion of Man at Expo 67 and many others at the National Museum of Science and Technology in Ottawa. Jacques also designed the String Chair which appeared in LIFE Magazine and cooperated with Michel Dallaire on the Habitat Garden Chair.
PASSION
In 1980 at age 27, I purchased my very first designer piece. La Barca, I Tavoli, an ash dinning room table made by Cassina and designed by Piero de Martini in 1975, was way beyond my means but I felt it was time to indulge in my passion. Purchased at Van Leeuwen Boomkamp in Ottawa, this table has become an integral part of my life. The table seats 10 comfortably and I cannot count the number of splendid meals that have been served at it, the quantity of fine wine that has been spilt on it or the number of fists that have struck it in lively discussion over the past 27 years. La Barca, however seem none the worse for it as you can see in the photo.
The ‘80’s were busy years for me.
Orthopedic residency, marriage to Josée and a 2-year fellowship in Australia preceded our move to Bermuda in 1988. I did manage to find the time for a few small acquisitions: TIZIO (Richard Sapper, 1972 for Artemide), ATON TERRA (Ernesto Gismondi, 1980 for Artemide) and MEGARON (Gianfranco Frattini, 1979 for Artemide) floor lamps and a KEVI chair (1973) by Danish designer Jørgen Rasmussen. It is during this period that I first became (and remain to this day) a member and frequent visitor of MoMA.
It was after our move to Bermuda that my yen for chairs really took hold. This may sound a bit paradoxical to those of you who know Bermuda. Isolated English colony that it is, modern design is nearly non-existent here and what little there is, like sexual depravity, is best enjoyed behind closed doors.
For those readers who have the same love of design as I do, there is, of course, no need to justify chair collecting. For the others, let me just plead my case by pointing out that the chair has been an object of attention since the dawn of civilization. More symbolic than utilitarian though most of man’s history, the chair has been both a blessing and a curse to mankind. While having something stable to sit on may have been an improvement over squatting on the ground or sitting on one’s haunches in many circumstances, there is no doubt the modern-day predicament of long days spent sitting is distinctly unphysiological and most likely a significant cause of low back pain.
Throughout history, certain chairs have been admired for their beauty and workmanship. However, it is only in the past 150 years that chairs have been elevated to art objects. During this period, chair design and manufacturing evolved from an essentially artisanal process to an industrial one. Architects, with their understanding of engineering, design and new materials were ideally positioned to take advantage of new technologies and express themselves through chair design. Indeed, it would not be too much of an exaggeration to say that most great architects have at one time or another designed a chair. Too numerous to count, chairs from the last 150 years come in all shapes and sizes and I have no doubt that books such as Catherine and Peter Fiell’s 1000 Chairs cover but a fraction of them.
What follows is a list of the chairs I’ve acquired since 1988. Perhaps, I should more properly call it a list of “objects to sit on” as some of the items cannot rightly be called chairs. Also included in the list is an object that you can’t sit on at all, the Eames Leg Splint. This is included because the techniques devised by the Eames’ to produce the splint were essential to the development of their iconic molded plywood chairs. Many of the chairs are used daily whereas some are more sculptural and never used. Here they are in alphabetical order:
• AALTO TALL STOOL WITH BACK, Alvar Aalto, 1930-33. International Contract Furnishings, USA. (4)
• AERON CHAIR, Bill Strumpf, Don Chadwick, 1994. Herman Miller, USA.
• BUTTERFLY STOOL, Sori Yanagi, 1956. Tendo Mokko, Japan.
• COSTES CHAIR, Philippe Starck, 1982. Driade, Italy.
• CROSS CHECK, Frank Gehry, 1991. Knoll, USA.
• DCW*, Charles and Ray Eames. 1946. Herman Miller, USA. (*Dining Chair Wood)
• ERO|S|, Philippe Starck, 1999. Kartell s.p.a., Italy. (8)
• FOLDING CHAIR, Anonymous Sailor, c.1905. (2)
• HILL HOUSE 1, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, 1902. Cassina, Italy. (2)
• KIOSK CHAIR, Olivier Leblois, 1992. Kiosk Canada, Canada.
• LA CHAISE, Charles and Ray Eames, 1948. Vitra, Germany.
• LC4, Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, Charlotte Perriand, 1928. Cassina, Italy.
• LCW*, Charles and Ray Eames, 1946-1957 Herman Miller, USA. (*Lounge Chair Wood)
• LEG SPLINT, Charles and Ray Eames, 1941-1942. Evans Company, Molded Plywood Division, Los Angeles, California.
• MEZZADRO STOOL, Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni, 1957. Zanotta, Italy.
• MISS TRIP, Philippe Starck, 1996. Kartell, Italy.
• MOVE, Per Øie, 1987. Stokke, Norway.
• PANTON CHAIR, Verner Panton, 1967. Vitra, Germany.
• PLASTIC SIDE CHAIR WITH “EIFFEL TOWER” BASE (DSR*), Charles and Ray Eames, 1950, Herman Miller, USA. (*Dining Side Chair Rod)
• PLIA, Giancarlo Piretti, 1969. Anonima Castelli s.p.a., Italy.
• TATO, Enrico Baleri and Denis Santachiara, 1997. Baleri Italia, Italy.
• VARIABLE BALANS, Peter Opsvik, 1979. Stokke, Norway.
• WALNUT STOOL (Shape B), Charles and Ray Eames, 1960. Herman Miller, USA.
• WASSILY, Marcel Breuer, 1925. Knoll, USA.
• WOOD CHAIR, Marc Newson, 1988. Cappellini (since 1992), Italy.
• ZIG-ZAG, Gerrit Thomas Rietveld, 1934. Cassina, Italy.
It is important to point out that in spite of my seeming obsession for seating, my interest in design is not restricted to chairs although these are certainly the loudest expression of it. I believe strongly that good design can be incorporated into all aspects of daily life and I never tire of seeking it in every object that surrounds me…often to a fault. I hope that after reading this story you will better understand my choice of the tag line for this website: living by design.
Joseph Froncioni
Leonie,
They certainly are as I don't think they are being produced in their original form any more. Do yours come with 2 chopsticks?
Posted by: Joseph Froncioni | May 14, 2007 at 07:23 AM
I have been going thru things I have stored & checked the condition of a pair of Kiosk Chairs I bought whilst living in Michigan. I have not "built them yet & they came back with me when we moved back to Australia in 1996. I first saw them in Paris on a trip in about 93. Are they considered to be collectable within the design fraternity? Thanks Leonie Geelong Australia
Posted by: leonie amerena | May 14, 2007 at 03:00 AM