Are You Sitting Comfortably?
A brief history of the Eames Plastic Side Chair
One day, a man drove a truck halfway across the country and up my driveway to drop off six Eames Plastic Side Chairs. Neatly wrapped, brand new, licensed models by Vitra.
Could it get any better?
Yes. They were free.
Up till then, online raffles and surveys had materialised me a handful of book vouchers, cinema tickets and a coffee maker. Surprising what personal data is worth to a marketer. In my case, I assume the design retailer, Donum needed to free up space and generate some buzz while they were at it.
So here I find myself, cradled in living history by a stroke of luck.
That is how I got there. But how did it get there?
How were chairs made before the advent of plastics? You could choose from sawn, milled, hewn, bent, woven or forged. All that changed when new production methods and materials enabled the creation of furniture that more readily adapted to the human form.
But first, let’s start with the chair itself.
