Учебно-методическое пособие для студентов специальности «Дизайн»

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3. Look up the following words in a dictionary to avoid any difficulty of 
understanding: 
available 
bend 
conduit 
craftsmanship 
cumbersome 
damn 
edge 
embrace 
emerge 
ignore 
impetus 
layer 
mould 
multi-ply 
pattern 
plane 
rail 
remain 
revitalize 
sheet 
switch 
timber 
traverse 
upholstery 
veneer 
4. Read the text. 
Furniture – and the chair especially – has been used by 20th-century archi-
tects and designers as a means of making an aesthetic, social and ideological 
argument. 
In the 1920s, European designers such as Marcel Breuer and Ludwig Mies 
van der Rohe (Germany, 1886–1969), developed new, minimalist conceptions 
for furniture, using tubular steel and thin upholstery.
In the 1940s, furniture designers were excited by the possibilities offered 
to them by new laminates, new bending techniques, and combinations of 
laminated wood, metal and plastic. By making a means of moulding materials 
in two directions at once, modern furniture designers were able to switch from 
constructed assemblage to sculptural forms. These new and rounder designs 
appeared also in Italy and to some extent in Britain. 
Some of the most interesting furniture design in the early postwar years came 
from the USA, especially from the Cranbrook Academy of Art, founded in 1932 
by George Booth, a newspaper baron, and Eliel Saarinen, the Finnish architect. 
The American Look in furnishings and interior design was especially sig-
nificant in the offices of Corporate America. American companies such as 
IBM, Ford, General Motors, Coca-Cola and Du Pont were regarded as su-
preme examples of business efficiency, and other companies in other countries 
wanted Jo copy their look. The characteristics of the official ‘Look’ were com-
fort, colour, brightness, order and hygiene. Surfaces were kept clear of cum-
bersome pattern or ornament, although the Look was tempered by simple pat-
tern on the chair coverings or curtains or in the laminates that provided cover-
ing to the cupboard panelling. Ornamentation was provided by modern paint-
ings, or through a reasonable number of potted plants. Overall, the style of 
decoration that became permitted in the interiors of the better homes, offices 
and reception areas might be described as ‘intellectual gingham’. 

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In Britain there was a lot of well made, modestly Modern furniture design 
using multi-plywood construction. Multi-ply – dozens of layers of wood ve-
neer, bonded and then pressed to form a homogeneous sheet – allowed a de-
signer to specify thin curved legs and back rails for chairs. This enabled the 
designer to create ‘drawings in space’ – a popular ambition, which they shared 
with contemporary sculptors. Wood predominated, but some elegant, well-
proportioned, apparently comfortable and durable designs in metal also ap-
peared in Britain soon after the war. A now classic example is the aluminium 
BA3 chair, designed by Ernest Race using aircraft salvage. 
And there was Utility furniture, a range of simple, cheap-to-make furniture 
designed for production during the war. Its standards improved after the war. 
Britain maintained rationing of food and materials until 1954 and, during the 
war, use had to be made of materials such as low-grade hardboard, which gave a 
ragged edge when sawn. When timber supplies eased in the late 1940s the Util-
ity range was updated. The designs and specifications were extremely detailed, 
in order that a variety of firms, large and small, could produce the work without 
dispute. Though popular with some designers and architects, the stigmas of util-
ity, bureaucracy and puritanism damned the furniture in the eyes of most con-
sumers who, as soon as choice was available in the 1950s, threw it out. 
But eventually in furniture, as in so many other areas of design, the impe-
tus for new styles came from Italy. The postwar growth of various design-led 
manufacturing and retailing companies in Italy provided a conduit between the 
designer's ideals and the market place. Among the important companies were 
(and are) Cassina, Driade, Kartell and Tecno. 
During the 1980s, architects were designing office furniture because the 
top end of the market could finance high quality manufacture and intelligent 
modern design. The internationally recognized architect Sir Norman Foster 
designed an office furniture system called Nomos for the Italian company 
Tecno. It appeared in 1986 and demonstrated the values Foster expresses in 
his architecture: the pleasure of engineering structure and the elegance of 
planes traversing wide spaces. 
During the 1980s, one of Britain’s most talented young designers 
emerged: Jasper Morrison. Like everyone else involved in design his subse-
quent breakthrough into manufacture came through his exposure in the design 
and fashion media. The first and main arena in which the ‘new furniture’ op-
erated was the magazine and the colour photograph. The colour photograph 
and the press media’s greed for new ideas replaced the rich patron as a launch-
ing pad for new ideas. 
There were attempts to give the ‘new furniture’ movement an intellectual 
base. Although words such as ‘discussion’ and ‘debate’ attended exhibitions 
and seminars on furniture design, such as occurred at the “The Modern Chair” 

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exhibition at the ICA, London (1988), nothing very much was ever estab-
lished; the discussion was always potential rather than actual. Thus it was as-
serted that ‘the chair can legitimately be used to ask questions about our rela-
tionships with our possessions and our surroundings’, but neither questions 
nor answers were really formulated. All that could be claimed was all that 
could be seen – which was that the form and material of a chair could be al-
most infinitely various. Indeed, in London there was a rapid retreat from dis-
cussion into romanticism, especially when artist-designers such as Tom Dixon 
and Andre Dubreuil emerged with their elegant and fanciful metal seating. 
These men were, it was said, operating 'on an intuitive level.' 
Until the 1980s, wood was the only practical material that could be 
worked in solid planks but then, in the 19805, two new materials were devel-
oped that could be sawn and planed, and which found a ready use in furniture. 
The first, MDF (Medium Density Fibreboard) was the first of a generation of 
processed-wood boards that could be planed and treated like wood. It is 
strong, has a very smooth finish and is extremely heavy. It found favour with 
‘Postmodern’ furniture designers who wanted the flexibility of wood without 
the grain and finish of wood. 
The most famous furniture designer of the 19805 was the Frenchman Phil-
ippe Starck. Starck came to public renown through being commissioned by 
French President Mitterrand to design the furnishings for Mitterrand's private 
apartment in the Elysee palace. In the midst of colourful Postmodernism, with 
its references to Neoclassicism and Las Vegas vulgarity, Starck’s designs were 
simple, neat and chic. Although Modern, they were also nostalgic for the Art-
Modernc look of the French 19305. His preferred material was metal. His most 
famous designs remain those produced in the 19805 for the Italian company 
Driade – the Von Vogelsang chair (1984) and the Titos Apostos folding table 
(1985) are ‘classics’ of his style. Since the mid 1980s Starck's work has em-
braced interior and product design as well as architecture. He is quoted as say-
ing: 'I work instinctively, and above all fast. I can design a good piece of furni-
ture in fifteen minutes.’ In the early 1990s, he was designing buildings in Japan. 
Also in Japan, a designer had emerged who was a master of using metal in 
furniture and in interior design: Shiro Kuramata. His work often uses the lat-
tice effects that are possible in metal to create optical games, and several of his 
chairs are designed as things to contemplate – in the tradition of Japanese gar-
dens or ceramics. For Western critics, Kuramata revitalized the issue of furni-
ture design communicating not only through its design but through the quality 
of its craftsmanship – the importance of craft that had become ignored in 
European experiments. 
Furniture can be made in low-technology workshops, and it is not depend-
ent upon clever electronics or sophisticated engineering. It has become, since 

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1945, an ideal medium for designers to make their visual statements and con-
struct their individual manifestos. In furniture there is a ping-pong game 
played out between absurd and useful design, and this game is one way in 
which the design profession explores itself: the designing, re-designing and re-
re-designing of the chair is the design profession's equivalent of publishing a 
short scientific paper asking 'What if?' 

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