Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Chair #6



THE WIGGLE CHAIR
—Designed by Frank Gehry

Talk about going green — this chair is made of cardboard! Frank Gehry designed this chair way before "renewable resource" was even a catchphrase. Better known for his, avante-garde architecture of brilliantly organized chaos — structures often built of shiny, jutting, twists of titanium, Gehry also designed fabulously simple organic chairs such as this one. He designed it as part of his "Easy Edges" series (1969-1973). In 2004 a pair of stools from this series sold for $18,000 at Sotheby's. An international superstar in the field of architecture, Gehry isn't just an architect, he's a "Starchitect." Is anyone out there craving a piece of ribbon candy besides me?

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"Wiggle it, just a little bit"

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"I used to make a lot of contour models, where you pile up corrugated cardboard, and I loved to look at the ends. When you sliced them of, they looked like curdoroy. So I got the idea to make cardboard furniture. The first chairs sold at Bloomingdale's for $35 in 1972. I thought it could be the Volkswagen of furniture. You have to free yourself of all the rules to let ideas happen. I follow my instincts. It's like a pussycat with a ball of string. You push it. It falls. You look at it, and if you like it, you grab it. It's a strategy of opportunism."

                 —Frank Gehry, in a 2006 House Beautiful article

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