An interpretation of Marcel Breuer’s 1928 classic, the Cesca chair.
Chris Hardy’s response to Powerhouse Museum’s Re-loved exhibition arose from looking at modernist attitudes to adopting new technologies in the early part of last century. Just like Breuer’s Cesca chair, one of the first cantilevered chairs brought about by the use of new fabrication techniques, this reinterpretation of the Cesca chair (a modernist classic) uses contemporary generative techniques and rapid prototyping technology as an homage to modernism.
The generative method used is voronoi subdivision of a point cloud. This enabled further meaning to be built into the chair by using an image of the chair’s creator to influence the point cloud – Breuer becomes a ghost in the chair. The technology used to build the chair was selective laser sintering (Shapeways). This was used based on its strength characteristics and its ability to be formed quickly and easily based on the quite complex geometry.
The seat and back were sintered in pieces then assembled and attached to an existing frame circa 1970’s. It will be interesting to see more furniture modifications such as this that build on an existing components in a post-modern kind of mash-up that also reduces the cost of production.
Chris Hardy is a Lecturer in Industrial Design in the Faculty of Arts and Design at the University of Canberra, Australia teaching across a range of fields associated with contemporary industrial design practice. He pursued a career in academia after time spent working in an interdisciplinary team for Caroma, a major Australian bathroom product manufacturer. The work done here was diverse, ranging from research projects concerned with various water saving technologies to developing products from concept through to manufacture.
His field of research focuses on how designed objects can have implications for the human affective system as it is influenced by desire and emotion. To this end Chris is currently pursuing PhD candidature in Environmental Design concerned with light delivery in the context of Design and Emotion.
Photos: Sotha Bourn Reproduced courtesy of the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney
“His field of research focuses on how designed objects can have implications for the human affective system as it is influenced by desire and emotion”
Well, I can tell you how it would feel on my human affective system – It would hurt like hell!
Glenn
Glenn, is that an emotive response 🙂
Haha… reminds me of something I might find in the Tate, but certainly not Ikea 😉
Glenn