Chair of the Day: Ross Lovegrove’s Go Chair

Chair of the Day | July 7, 20086 Comments

Chair of the Day: Ross Lovegrove’s Go Chair

I read an interesting article today about the state of American design and designers. I was interested to learn that while Ross Lovegrove’s Go Chair is in just about every design museum in Europe, America has turned up its nose. The public has as well. It’s considered too modern.

What do you think?

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 Responses to “Chair of the Day: Ross Lovegrove’s Go Chair”

Avatars are randomly assigned unless you get your own

Posted by Joe Posch on July 10th, 2008 at 12:52 am

Interesting example, the Ross Lovegrove chair.

This is a terribly, um, “advanced” design for a chair. It takes a really special design lover to put this in his or her home. It has a very “space age” circa 1969 look to me (and as a natural extension of that, most Americans, I’ll claim). It was very of-the-moment from the day it came out, a media darling, and while it was really soooo hot then I’d say it hasn’t aged as gracefully as one might have hoped.

For a restaurant or other institutional client I can see it working better, but most of America is not working with this aesthetic. Frankly, I’d like to see how it is being used in Europe outside the museum world.

As a retail-related coda, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that the production of this chair was taken on by a relatively unknown manufacturer (if I recall correctly) who obviously was banking on a big name design, and the price point was on the higher end, relatively speaking. There may have been a reason more established manufacturers passed on the chair, assuming it was offered to them in the first place.

Also, at the time the chair came out it was most prominently distributed by Design Within Reach, with other retail outlets being a distant second. The problem with this is it didn’t meet DWR’s goals, it got marked down and removed from their offerings, and suddenly the manufacturer is left high and dry, having put most of their eggs in one basket.

This chair is no longer even shown at ICFF, and I haven’t heard anything at all about it’s distribution since the year after it came out.

So I guess there is sometimes more to the story than no one in America likes design!

Posted by Joe Posch on July 10th, 2008 at 6:26 pm

So I was thinking more about this chair.

The design is organic but in a creepy way, like Alien. That is made worse by the materials, although props for trying a new material (magnesium, right?).

So, strange insect appeal aside, I was thinking about how this might work someplace, what kind of decor could embrace this, what changes would make it more palatable?

It occurred to me that, done in wood, this chair could be absolutely beautiful. Can you imagine it in rosewood?

Suddenly it’s very advanced Danish Modern.

Posted by Jennifer on July 11th, 2008 at 6:19 pm

I think most furniture of this nature is created with the commercial market in mind because that’s where the big orders come from. I also have a hard time seeing this in a residential setting. But it also looks like the back rest is too deep to be comfortable as a dining chair.

Also, look at the lines – where the chair is pieced together. It looks awkward, doesn’t it? It definitely has an Alien quality to it – funny. When you mentioned seeing it in wood I immediately thought of Cherner’s chairs. They’re not really alike, but then they are in a way. They both have that thinness to them.

Anyway, we all know that sometimes the critics fall over themselves to embrace something NEW! and then live to regret it. Perhaps it’s the method they admire more than the design. I’m also thinking of Grcic’s chair for Plank he designed this year with BASF. Everyone’s gone ga ga over it. It’s definitely cool, but outside of an office conference room, it really has no place to go. So, cool design. But will it make money? And now I guess I’ll make it my chair of the day.

: Posted by Design Hole Online ¬ª That’s Tight! » Chair of the Day: Grcic’s Myto Chair on July 11th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
[...] learn more about why I chose this chair today, see the discussion underway at this previous Chair post. Posted by Jennifer at 6:37 pm | Tagged: You can leave a response, or [...]