Description

Masterpiece Chairs presents a step-by-step guide and in-depth record of the history and construction of 18 classic 20th Century chairs. It isn’t just the aesthetic appeal or comfort of a chair that defines whether it has been well-designed; it’s also how it has been planned and constructed. This book features 18 classic chairs, each carefully disassembled and then restored to be as good as new. There are over 1,000 photographs detailing every stage of the process, so you can see every piece that went into the construction of each chair and how they all fit together. The chairs themselves are key masterpieces in twentieth-century furniture design and represent the work of visionaries such as Arne Jacobsen, Hans J. Wegner, Peter Hvidt and Orla Molgaard-Nielsen. AUTHORS: Takaaki Nishikawa is woodworking author and chair researcher. He writes about almost anything wood-related, from chairs and furniture to forests and timber. His previous books include This Chair Is the One!, Encyclopaedia of the Origins of Classic Chairs, Handmade Wooden Stools, Lifelong Wooden Furniture and Vessels, Trees and Wood of Japan, Exploring Wooden Craft and Japan’s Forests and Woodworkers. Shigeru Sakamoto is a woodwork designer and a part-time lecturer in Interior Architecture at the Department of Design at Tokyo Zokei University. After training as a furniture maker at Gotanda Seisakusho, he joined D-Sign (now Carl Hansen & Son Japan) in 1990. He left in 2014 to found Sim Design. He won the Grand Prize at the Wooden Chairs for Everyday Life Exhibition in 1998 and took the Factory Craft Category Grand Prix at the Takaoka Craft Competition in 2015. He is the co-author of The Secrets of the Y Chair. SELLING POINTS: . An in-depth record of the construction of 18 classic chairs . Step-by-step photographs of the disassembly and restoration of each chair . Descriptions of all materials . A history of the development of each chair, including refinements made to the original designs during the manufacturing period