100 MIDCENTURY CHAIRS AND THEIR STORIES

With a 'chair timeline', including the very best of European, Scandinavian, American and Japanese design, here are the top 100 most interesting, most controversial, or simply most beautiful chairs from the period spanning 1930-1970. The mid-century chair is not only functional but a piece of stunning design history, built with elaborate construction detail and encapsulating the history of international designers such as Robin Day, Ernest Race and Arne Jacobsen, Pierre Paulin, Finn Juhl, Harry Bertoia, Ero Saarinen and Norman Cherner. Plus lots of information about the manufacturers that brought chair designs to the masses, such as Knoll, Herman Miller, Fritz Hansen and Asko. Each chair is presented to the reader, including its name, original number, designer and producer, and date of design. Discover what the chair meant to designers such as Charles Eames who called the chair 'a piece of architecture on a human scale' and Danish designer Arne Jacobsen who used the chair as a business card for his practice, often calling up the press just before a new model was about to emerge. Admire the folding chair from Mogens Koch with its original canvas armrests which was first unveiled in 1932 but was only picked up by a producer and displayed at a Danish manufacturers' exhibition in 1950. The reader will be desperate to sink into the extraordinary upholstered Pelican Chair by Finn Juhl which exposed its legs (a rarity at the time) and had a pine frame which formed a curvy shape designed to fit alongside abstract art of the day. The Element Chair by Poul Kaerholm was built from a complex matte-chromed steel frame bent in a single piece, making it a sophisticated artwork despite being created by a student for his final graduation project. The mid-century chair has often caused drama such as the Wassily chair (inspired by artist Wassily Kandinsky) which was loved by its muse but saw people jump on it in exhibitions in order to destroy it. In one instance, designers Charles and Ray Eames discovered that a group of creatives from the Eames studio had walked out of 'The Shop' in Venice Beach. Of course, there are stunning photographs of the 100 chairs, from the 'Listen-To-Me Chaise' in cream and the bold, bright red Child's Chair by the Eames, to the 'Marshmallow Love Seat' by George Nelson Associates which had a frame decorated in comfy, colourful discs and the 'Rocking Stool' by Isamu Noguchi who also happened to have designed Radio Nurse, one of the earliest baby monitors. 9.1" x 7.7", colour photographs, 210pp.