Designing Chairs: Big Appeal, Element of Risk
Any designer will tell you, including Yves Béhar of fuseproject, that designing a chair is a formidable task, and an appealing one. As this clip from the Wall Street Journal notes, the appeal is particularly strong for architects. That’s because, according to Barry Bergdoll, curator at MoMA, a chair “makes space, it has support, so in the end the chair is architecture.” Like architecture, chairs are so visible, our relationship to them so intimate, that designing them can give pause.
Béhar, an industrial designer, sought inspiration for his design of the SAYL chair from a very architectural form: suspension bridges. For Béhar, the project had appeal and risk. He says, “I practiced for more than a decade and waited to tackle the work chair. And it is only after turning 40 that I feel ready for such an epic design challenge.” Part of the challenge, says Béhar, lies in the fact that “every part serves a structural or tactile purpose. Every part is about creating comfort while needing to be visually cohesive and beautiful.”
An element of risk, certainly, but ah the rewards. And it’s especially gratifying when others recognize the achievement, in SAYL’s case the latest coming from IDEA.