Chairs
mahogany, assorted wood veneers, cane
17 x 16 x 30 in.
Chairs is an exercise in generative pastiche. This chair is almost entirely a reproduction of a Regency Era chair from 1830’s England. I inferred form, scale, dimensions, material, and methods as best I could from a listing on 1st Dibs. The appealing feature of this period chair, and why I found it useful, was the extensive marquetry decoration that adorned its faces. The original is a fine example of ornamentation, craftsmanship, and luxury furniture from a period where industrial production was still coming into being—and before it had come to impact the design of furniture. The marquetry ornamentation is exemplary in that it includes the most conventional depictions of ornamentation in the West at that time: griffins, shields, acanthus leaves, and scrollwork.
I reproduced this chair, produced two decades prior to the formation of design as a discipline, with one key contemporary intervention. Early in the 20th century, form superseded depiction or decoration. Meditating on this shift, I substituted the depictions of conventional ornament with depictions of the most iconic forms of the 20th century: mid-century chairs. The illustration and organization of the marquetry takes further inspiration from Alexander Girard, one of the most iconic design illustrators of that period, and his pattern Fruit Trees. The original scrollwork now takes the form of branches, with chairs as the colorful fruits of that tree.