In the first three weeks of the semester, we had to refinish the old chair of our university's library, the Sorbetto model of Calligaris. Everybody got a worn-out body of a chair on which we could only make technical and minimal geometrical changes and we had to redesign the whole missing seat. The task was to rethink the function of sitting as well as to experiment with making forms, associating materials and connecting them with the already available structure.
The wasteproduct that I got for this purpose has definitely been ’past its prime’ and life took its toll on it. The original padding was apparently burnt, so it was entirely deprived of its function. In fact, it ceased to be a chair. Given that my mission was to help it revive, I decided that I would reconstruct the seat from metal that is incombustible, thus, by using this material, I could make the chair ‘immortal‘.
Nevertheless,metal is inhuman material: it is brittle and has high electrical conductivity, high thermal conductivity, and high density. All these features are contrary to those required by the surface made for seating and accommodating the human body. Therefore, when I figured the form out, I tried to give this materiel a sense of being soft and light. I wanted the seat to reflect the feminine shape of the original chair body, and to emphasize, at the same time, the junction between the back and the leg.
Photo by Attila Miletics
Photo by Attila Miletics
Photo by Attila Miletics
Photo by Attila Miletics
Consultants: István Juhász, András Kerékgyártó
2017
