Festival fever
Wednesday 29 June 2011
It was such a joy to finally see Robin Day's Lounge Chair, designed in 1951 for the Royal Festival Hall, up close and personal. With its fluid one-piece moulded plywood back and arms veneered in rosewood, upholstered seat and back pad in a delicious mustard yellow fabric and thin cooper-plated steel rod legs, one could instantly see how this design was viewed as being 'radically different' when it was first introduced. Wait. Cooper-plated steel legs? Really? Why didn't we know this? And how can it be that the chair displayed at Pallant House is the only authenticated Lounge Chair to have survived the Royal Festival Hall's refit by London County Council in the early 1960s? What happened to all the others? Where are they? Where?
First image: Elegance on a Shoestring
It reminds me of the Mercedes gullwing from around the same time.
ReplyDeleteLooks like it may just take off, there is such a sense of dynamism to it.
Copper plating! I'd never read one word about that either. And the shape of that back pad. If ever a piece of furniture were to make me weak at the knees, it would be this one.
ReplyDeleteBlue Fruit: Ah, not being big on cars we had to google that one ..... and you're not wrong. We're impressed!
ReplyDeleteMid2Mod: The legs were special - very special!
i have one of these - number 20 (XX) is written on the frame...an absolute treat for the eye...looking for one more...one day i hope!
ReplyDelete