Amongst the merchandise that accompanied the Vitra Design Museum exhibition was a book entitled Chairman - a title which illustrates, literally, the role of Roll Fehlbaum as director of the Vitra dynasty. The Museum, in Weil am Rhein, Germany, concerns itself almost entirely with the history of chair design. Conceptually, Fehlbaum's aim was to create a Museum which would appeal to the layman and to awaken awareness of a designed environment.
On first viewing this exhibition, one is struck by gimmickry; a useful tool for highlighting the infinite ways a chair may be interpreted. The Pratone chair, (translated as 'lawn') is a completely goofy concoction of foamy green planks, designed to represent magnified blades of grass. It was intended as a salve for poor inner-city Romantics, struck by a sudden yearning for nature. The idea was that they could plunge into this interior landscape and imagine the delights of a lush green field. The fluffy orange Pantower, an equally way-out creation, curves in a pattern to seat four people at varying heights. Made in 1968 by Verner Panton, it was a commission by Herman Miller AG.
The audience's favourite chair at the Brisbane City Gallery was Gaetano Pesce's Donna (1969) a red buxom lounge chair which reclines as a metaphorical nude. What does not follow, initially, is that the round footrest represents a ball and chain. According to the original design plans, the chair portrays the weight of womanhood: 'A woman is always confined, a prisoner of herself against her will. .. l wanted to give this chair the shape of a woman with a ball chained to her foot'. I Not all furniture performs such lively metaphors. Frank Lloyd