Sunday, May 22, 2016

How I know I am old and unsophisticated

This past week, our newspaper carried a story about a chair from a local woodworker that had won a major design competition.  It is called The Portland Chair and is thought to be so wonderful that it will be manufactured and sold by Thos. Moser.  You can buy it for a mere $1,250 in cherry or $1,440 in walnut.  If you would like to read more about it and view pictures of construction details, see the newspaper article in the link above.

I don't know what you think of it, but I know what I think of it: not much.  I can't conceive of paying that much for that chair.  I wouldn't want to sit in it and I wouldn't want to look at it.  There are chairs at IKEA that I would rather have.  Really.  Honestly, I am utterly perplexed.  My grandfather's milking stool looked better than this to me.  The old image of the RCA dog cocking its ear at strange sounds emanating from a Victrola comes to my mind.

There are quite a large number of furniture styles that I really like, some historical and some modern, but I just cannot comprehend how anyone thinks this is a nice looking or nice functioning chair.

I just came back from a visit to my sister, who lives in Reston, Virginia.  While I was there, I read about a building that is about to be torn down which is a prized example of "Brutalist" architecture.  Brutalist?  I had never heard of it.  Here is an excerpt from the Wikipedia article:
In its ruggedness and lack of concern to look comfortable or easy, Brutalism can be seen as a reaction by a younger generation to the lightness, optimism, and frivolity of some 1930s and 1940s architecture. In one critical appraisal by Banham, Brutalism was posited not as a style but as the expression of an atmosphere among architects of moral seriousness.
This chair seems to me to have evolved from the same sort of thinking.  By all means, let's not be comfortable, light, easy, optimistic or frivolous.  Perish the thought.  Why have chairs at all?  Why not just sit on the floor?  That would, after all, be more morally serious, wouldn't it?

As for me, I'll be sitting in my comfortable FDR chair drinking a microbrew and trying to be optimistic about the state of American design.  If this Moser chair sells for $1,440, I'm thinking of offering my chair for $9,999.  For the record, don't get an idea of what we here in Portland are like from The Portland Chair.  Watch Portlandia or go see the chairs in Timberline Lodge.  Basically, we're easy, optimistic and frivolous.

C'mon guys, help me out here.  Open my eyes to the art.

7 comments:

  1. Strange a Portland chair has so little wood when Portland and all of Oregon has such beautiful forests!

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    1. Well, it certainly looks, um, interesting? I am not a chairmaker, but I sit in chairs, and that does not look the least bit comfortable. But then, I am part of the unwashed woodworking masses. Oy.

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  2. I think the line got blurred between artistry and functionality. This chair looks modern but not comfortable to sit in. I don't think the Shakers would have recognized this as their own.

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  3. The chair does not look comfortable to me. The building is downright disturbing. It's architecture you see in many government buildings. It looks like they are preparing for a siege.

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  4. If the Moser chair sells for that price, you should hold out for 20K.

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  5. Portland (or at least Portlandia) understands furniture like this, and has already prepared a film tribute!
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTcvmmOkqJI

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    1. I had forgotten this. Thank you for providing the link. It's hilarious.

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