snobbery

Up until the other day we'd never featured ARKANA on the blog. Why?  Well, quite possibly because we're design snobs - come on, there's only one TULIP chair, and it's the one designed by Eero Sarineen for Knoll.  End of.  Just how Mr. Burke was able to take Sarineen's design and reproduce it so, umm, blatantly is beyond us.  But he did.  And here it is.  The seat has very similar dimensions to Saarinen's chair, but the pedestal features a four-legged propeller shaped base instead of the circular one seen on Saarinen's design.  Also, as with Sarineen's design, Burke's were crafted from fibreglass plastic and the pedestal bases made of enamel-coated aluminium.

So there you have it.  A rip-off.  But, rightly or wrongly, these 'tulips' are growing on us.

Images:  RetroAge via Deconet 

miscellany #2

Hello there again. Just some more images of a few favourites we've previously featured. There's a pleasing mix of textures and materials here - and a couple of flying chairs thrown in for good measure as we're quite partial of that photograph with the chaps playing cards and smoking cigars!

Images:
Sofa by Pierre Guariche for Meurop via City-Furniture | La Fonda base via Vintage Gallery | | Photograph of Verner Panton's Flying Chairs via boiteaoutils | Moulded plastic chairs by Steen Østergaard via Danish Teak Classics | Medium Armshell X-Base via Modern Conscience | Day Bed One by Another Country via Another Country | Dining chairs by Maurice Burke via Deconet | Wire stools by Cees Braakman via Deconet | Unidentified chair via le boeuf | Detail taken from seating by Friso Kramer via Vervlogenjaren

Monday blues

Images:  Mid-Century Online, Deconet