Test your Design IQ
MANILA, Philippines - Who is the American designer who pioneered the use of modern materials, molding processes, and mechanisms leading to cutting-edge products like his Modular Seating and Aeron chair designs?
A native of Southern California, his love of furniture goes back to his childhood, when his cabinetmaker grandfather taught him how to use the tools of the trade — hand tools that required skill, precision, and patience.
Later, unlike other industrial design students at UCLA in the mid-1950s, he focused on furniture. And after hearing Charles and Ray Eames lecture there, he was convinced, realizing that furniture offered designers, even industrial designers, and the chance to use new materials in new innovative ways. More importantly, it would allow them to make a real difference in other people’s lives.
He then worked for architect Victor Gruen before establishing his own practice in 1964. On his own, he began to collaborate with Hermann Miller, a furniture company, in the mid-1970s.
In 1974, he designed Modular Seating, a system for upholstered seat furniture. it consists of five independent modules, one of which is rectangular, while the other four are wedge-shaped. Any number of these modules can be fitted together to make an endless sofa.
While doing projects with Hermann Miller, he met Bill Stumpf, who was assistant director of the research division. He would collaborate with Stumpf on numerous projects beginning with the development of office chairs. One of these, Ergon, set new standards of ergonomic seating.
The Equa chair, which they developed in 1984, was a further improvement on the Ergon with a flexible back for even more comfortable sitting.
In 1992, they launched Aeron, an office chair with a seat and back of breathable polyester. Since the chair did not need separate upholstery, production time was greatly reduced.
The Aeron chair was chosen as the Design of the Decade by the Industrial Society of America and Business Week magazine.
He continues to design in his studio in Santa Monica, which he calls an “experimental lab” It is one that contains the workman’s apparatus of saws, grinders, lathes, drill presses, and vises. It is not a place where design takes place on the computer, by numbers or hypotheses.
“The only way to make sure a chair is comfortable is to actually sit on it,” he says. “A computer can’t deal with the subtleties of chair design. It’s too complex.”
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Last week’s question: Who is the Japanese architect, one of the most significant architects of the 20th century, combining traditional Japanese styles with modernism. He designed major buildings on five continents.
Answer: Kenz? Tange
Winner: Maria Leonora V. del Pilar of Makati City
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Text your answer to 0915-6486414 with your name and address. One winner will be chosen through a raffle of texts with the correct answer. The winner will receive P2,000 worth of SM gift certificates for use at Our Home, SM Department Store, or SM Supermarket. They can claim their prize at Our Home in SM Megamall. Call the store manager at 634-1950.Bring photocopies of two valid IDs and a clipping of the Design Quiz issue in which you appear as winner.
