The Whereabouts of a Displaced Chair
The Global Flow of — the Rattan, the Monobloc & the Eames DSW.
What might come across as a fairly mundane object, the chair represents a lot more than the sheer comfort and adornment it offers to a particular setting. Over the years, the object has become a status symbol, taken an authoritative position, represented how a certain culture works and in extension how the culture gets represented in different parts of the world as well. In his book, Cross Cultural Chairs, Guarnaccia demonstrates the role of the chair in multiple parts of the world through the lens of daily activities such as language, marriages, music, sitting manners and even greeting people when they enter our homes. Through this piece, I wish to identify the global flow of three chairs in particular — the Monobloc, the Rattan and the Eames DSW. Chairs often represent a certain philosophy of a culture, the weather and the materials available in that context; but, as soon as you put the chair in a different context, the meaning, the symbolism and the role often morphs into something new, typically losing its original status. This brings a few key questions to my mind which I wish to answer through this piece -
What does the chair represent about the society where it was displaced to? And how was it claimed? What qualifies as a well-designed chair? Who gets to decide if it’s well-designed?
In order to answer these questions, its necessary to understand the origin of these chairs and their global flow in the succeeding years. The Rattan is popularly viewed as “the summer chair” in most western centric nations across the world. It is light, breathable and easy to transport across most spaces while also giving the user/viewer a glimpse into a “tropical lifestyle”, a way for people to escape their concrete reality when they get back home, when they go for a holiday or at times when they even visit a restaurant. Although origins of the mass produced Rattan in the west can be traced back to the mid 19th century when Rattan became popular in porches, verandas and open spaces, the turning point for the chair was 1914, when the Peacock Chair came to light during the American rule on pre Independence Philippines. The Peacock Chair became a raging symbol of the Colonizer and the Colonized. While on one hand, the chair was mass produced at the Bilibid Prison in Manila by the inmates, parallely, the chair also took focus in power-centric portrait photographs of several American Presidents in the next 20 years. The chair went through multiple ups and downs in the next 100 years where it significantly became a symbol of revolution in the 70s when the co-founder of the Black Panther Party Huey Newton was pictured sitting on it, a moment which was highlighted as a reclamation of power for the African American community (the colonized). When looked at from Du Gay’s Circuit of Culture diagram the identity, representation and consumption of the Rattan Chair has been through several stages in history, but an important aspect to note is that Rattan as a material is native to tropical areas of Asia, Africa and Australia. What’s fascinating is that although the material is native to these regions, the inherent flow of the products and culture was popularized by colonizers since the early 19th century. So much so, that the value of the origin is completely lost and with that the contribution of the artisans (the original designers) making them as well. The Rattan chair also sparks an important question in my mind on “Who is actually a designer?” Is it the community that popularized the product to the masses in different forms and shapes that they call design, or is it the community that works through the harvesting, drying, shaping, and wickering of these products without looking for “global fame”. The Rattan in my mind, definitely qualifies as a well designed chair which is built to sustain for many years with eventual degradation, but the popularization and ownership of the chair rides on the back of a deep rooted story of colonization and exploitation, which requires undoing and due acknowledgement where necessary.
Moving on to the Monobloc, the chair that is probably the most widely researched, spoken about and in use. So much so, that there are individuals who have devoted a large amount of time romanticizing, documenting and collecting the Monobloc in multiple shapes and forms. There are multiple theories and sources that claim the Monobloc was first made in Canada, Denmark, Germany or Italy, but with a chair as ubiquitous as the Monobloc and with no trace of original patents its difficult and almost unfair to recognise one maker. To answer the above questions posed, its important to understand how the Monobloc came to be. Unlike most other furniture which originate from certain materials, specific climates or the rigor of an individual designer, the Monobloc is a one-of-a-kind global piece that is locally produced in most regions across the world. The entire piece is injection moulded at around 220C by feeding in granulated polypropylene. The cost of making/purchasing a mold is also around 100,000 US$ which is marginally the same regardless of the region its made in. After churning out almost a million pieces through this mold, the mold is further sold to lower economic societies where more Monoblocs are produced with marginal faults, most that go unnoticed but still dont make the cut during quality checks in so-called “first world” nations. The important aspect to acknowledge at this point is the Global Flow of the Monobloc chair. Although there are scenarios where moulds get passed around from nation to nation, the cost of purchasing a one time mold is still fairly affordable at 100,000 US$ for the numbers and returns it produces. This typically leads to a single chair being sold at approximately 5–10 US$ or 8 Euros or 800 Indian Rupees. Although the chair is far reaching where you might see it at a funeral in Ghana, or a wedding in India or a beach in France or a food stall in Vietnam, the role and social status that the chair assumes varies from region to region. In one part of the world the Monobloc is often almost viewed as a destructive piece of plastic that has an infinite life and was shortly banned in Basel, Switzerland, to preserve the beauty of the cityscape (whatever that’s supposed to mean). Infact the recent sales in Europe and North America have been reducing in the past few years as well. While, in a different part of the world, the Monobloc serves an opportunity to host guests for evening chai in India, it gives an opportunity to a local food stall to seat his customers and also hold a 100 person wedding where everyone eats to their heart’s content. Referring to the Monobloc as an evil of globalization is a deeply naive and simplified stance on what the chair stands for. The beauty of the global flow of this object is that globalization cannot be viewed from one particular lens. What might seem like a cheap affordable object to one, might just be a window to actually own a chair for another. Equating the object to its material and taking a global stance on its value is a deep rooted hangover on colonization, in a time when developing nations need freedom to think for themselves. The Monobloc has already gone down in history as a chair that has cult status and it would be unfair to judge it as a good or badly designed object, when its far reaching ability has already made it a context free object.
The first photograph that comes up during any google or pinterest search related to “interior design” is typically the Eames DSW. Funnily enough, it is also the most standard dining chair used to represent a “moodboard” of a contemporary looking home in the west and the east. Tracking back a few years, the chair came into making in 1948 during the Museum of Modern Art low-cost furniture competition when Ray & Charles Eames presented this idea that embodied their philosophy of “Getting the most of the best to the greatest number of people for the least”. Although the original concept was made out of metal which didnt exactly meet the needs of the brief, the Eames couple decided to take the project ahead by themselves where they eventually moved to fiberglass as a lighter and more inexpensive material. The interesting bit is that although the chair had commercial success across a variety of spaces such as cafes, restaurants, hotels and luxury homes, the idea of mass production only limited itself to two regions — North America & Europe. The patent for the Eames DSW is currently held by two companies — Herman Miller & Vitra. The inherent idea that mass production limited itself to western centric nations in the mid 1900’s itself goes against what the brief and designers stood for. Fast forward 65 years ahead and the DSW is currently sold by Herman Miller & Vitra for almost 280 Euros, which is anything but affordable for the masses. The intriguing part about this point is that the identity of the chair in the circuit of culture has transcended time as well. What was originally thought as an easy to produce chair by the original makers is now sold as a “design icon” by the patent holders in a way to make the chair more desirable for the masses. (the patent-less Monobloc laughs in irony) But across shores in other nations, the DSW has now become an easily replicable chair in nations like China and India, with multiple differences in choice of material but visible resemblance in form and structure. Its necessary to acknowledge that the rise of these replicas overlaps with the improvement in technology over time as well. While on one hand these patents of the original are held closely by large companies, the DSW is now making waves in high income homes of developing nations where an idea of luxury, comfort & minimalism comes from what’s depicted in the west. The coincidence is that although the DSW didnt make it as a mass manufactured chair in its original form and material, its inherent shape found its way through replicas in multiple households as time passed by, thus cementing its global flow and holding multiple identities.
Chairs are unique objects that hold unique places in communities. But their inherent flow, like most other objects that are driven by consumerism, change their meaning over time. This piece and reflection gave me a glimpse of understanding how history plays a role in guiding the perspective of design objects which are often driven by power structures meant to benefit only a few, thus becoming tools of influence rather than just tools of aid.
Hopefully, I make room for more mundane objects and their stories in the near future!
