AI Creates Incredible Chairs

Artists of all sorts are exploring new possibilities by utilizing text-to-image AI software to great and sometimes startling effect. And virtual architect Kaveh Najafian of virtual architecture and design studio Contingency Plans used a text-to-image AI program called Midjourney to create a series of incredible chairs that look more like thrones for magical wood spirit kings and queens, or aliens from other worlds or dimensions. I was going to post these in my "Know Your Chairs" series but these chairs do not exist...yet. I see no reason why most of these could not be fabricated right now, especially the glorious wood ones with antler-like appendages. They have a fantastical, ancient-future sense about them. I think my favorite is the fifth one down...it is reminiscent of a crescent and full moon, and bull horns. I'd have that in my house.

Welcome to 2023! Engaging Entries, Part 8

Happy New Year followers and regular readers! Since we are "entering" a new year, it seems like a good time to check in on our ongoing series of "entries" and foyers...

by D2 Interieurs

by Chad James

by Eric Roseff

by Daun Curry

by Nicola Harding

by Angie Hranowsky

by James Huniford

Happy Solstice and Happy Holidays 2022!

As we wrap up 2022, I send warm Holiday Greetings to all my clients present and past, followers, and regular readers. And Happy Winter Solstice which takes place this Wednesday, December 21 at 1:47 PM.

Happy designing, Happy Holidays, Happy New Year, and I hope to see you in 2023!

Know Your Chairs: The Origami Chair by Frank Lloyd Wright

For this posting in our ongoing series Know Your Chairs, let's look at a very unique classic.

When the legendary architect and furniture designer Frank Lloyd Wright began building his Taliesin West compound, a winter home in warm Arizona for when things got too chilly at his primary Taliesin compound in Wisconsin, he naturally designed and furnished the interiors as well. And his Origami Chair first built in 1949 for the Garden Room has become a much sought after piece of furniture.

Officially titled the Taliesin1 chair and made from a single sheet of 4' x 8' laminated plywood, the armchair appears to be folded much like a piece of paper folded in the ancient Japanese style of origami. Here are the oirignals in situ at Taliesin West!

The chair was briefly in production for purchase by Italian furniture manufacturer Cassina in the 1950s, then reissued from 1986 to 1990 but fell out of favor as being too odd and avant garde. And now, I am happy to report, Cassina has brought the chairback once more with some slight modifications. They consulted original plans and drawings for the chair and removed the front "feet" for a cleaner look, and made the back recline at a greater angle for more comfort.

This classic can be configured with several different wood and upholstery choices and purchased at Cassina.com.

Happy designing!

Happy Thanksgiving 2022!

I wish all of my readers and followers in the United States a very happy Thanksgiving Day!

"Wear gratitude like a cloak, and it will feed every corner of your life."
--Rumi

Happy designing and Happy Thanksgiving!

Know Your Sofas: Mae West Lips Sofa

We've looked at a lot of different types of sofas in this recurring feature "Know Your Sofas" but probably none so whimsical as our next offering: The Lip Sofa.

A few versions of this sofa were first created in the 1930s. The master of Surrealist painting, Salvador Dalí, had an English art patron named Edward James and the two of them became quite friendly. When Dalí stayed with James at his estate in England in 1936, the pair dreamed up a host of Surrealist objects and furniture to create (including the Lobster Telephone!). The artist has already made a plan for an art work he loosely titled "Face of Mae West Which May Be Used as a Surrealist Apartment" in which the Hollywood actress' blond curls became drapery, her eyes became paintings hung on the wall, and her lips transformed into a divan. James was interested in having a pair of these lip divans created for his dining room.

Several iterations were made: some upholstered in pink satin, some in dark red, some with fringe at the bottom, some with a band with nail heads. One of the original Dalí-James creations is on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

On display at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam NL, 2017

In 1970, Franco Audrito, one of the founders of the Italian design and architectural firm Studio 65, created an updated version of the sofa as an homage to the Dalí-James sofa. He worked with foam furniture manufacturing company Gufram to realize an iteration entirely of block foam and instead of any reference to Mae West, he called it Marilyn after Marilyn Monroe (who had died only 8 years before). It's now called the Bocca (which means mouth in Italian).

Franco Audrito on the Bocca sofa in 2021, from The Corriere Torino

This elusive icon of design is still in production, available through Gufram, here, in an array of colors.

Happy designing!

Happy Halloween 2022!

Happy Halloween to all my clients, subscribers, and regular readers! Here's a bit of inspiration for your spooky decorating urges...I like to hang cut up black trash bags in a fringe as shown here. I also have a giant spider I hang from the eaves of my front porch. Colored lights go along way to conjuring up a mood of unease...use green tinted lights for a sickly tint. And ghosts cut out from translucent tracing paper taped up in windows offer a chill.

Have a wonderful, fun, and safe holiday!

Happy designing and Happy Halloween!

History of Furniture: George Hepplewhite

In the context of the history of furniture, there were a lot of cabinetmakers (an old term for furniture makers) in England in the 18th and 19th centuries but there are only a handful of legendary names:  Thomas Chippendale, Thomas Sheraton, and George Hepplewhite are known as The Big Three.

We have covered Chippendale in a post post here but let's take a look at George Hepplewhite. Not much is known of Hepplewhite's early life. Even his precise birthyear is unknown. But we do know he opened a cabinetmaker shop in London and died in 1786. However his widow Alice kept the business in operation.

Fascinatingly, it was not until 1788 when Alice posthumously published her late husband's designs in the CABINET MAKER AND UPHOLSTERER'S GUIDE that his work gained any notoriety. She published two further editions in 1789 and 1790. Chippendale was producing furniture at the same time and while he worked in a variety of styles, Hepplewhite stood by a single distinctive look featuring a neo-classical silhouette. Instead of the curvy cabriole leg of Queen Anne and Chippendale pieces, Hepplewhite looked to Grecian and Roman columns to make his straight legs--whether round or square--which were often fluted like a column of antiquity. He also pioneered and made popular the sideboard and the short chest of drawers which he designed with a serpentine or bow front, a relatively new feature in furniture for that period. Pieces are of contrasting veneered woods with inlays in interesting and pastoral shapes.

Hepplewhite created a unique chair back that is known as a "shield back chair," and it is easy to see why: the shape is that of a shield.

Hepplewhite also pioneered a decorative and functional object that every well appointed dinign room of the period held: the cutlery urn or box. These were carved wooden vessels with removeable lids that held knives but also spoons and forks. They were displayed on pedestals of their own often flanking a sideboard. The urn shape was popular but  Hepplewhite and Sheraton also designed square boxes with sloped and hinged lids.

Happy designing!