Chasing Chiavari Chairs
From Genoa, I take a scooter and travel south east and cross the fishing village of Camogli, the stunning Porto Fino, the towns of Rapallo and Zoagli before I reach Chiavari. As scooters of the kind I am riding are not allowed on highways, I am forced to take the road that is hugged by the coastline on one side and mountains on the other. While the ride feels longer, especially on an overcast day with the cold wind clawing into my bones, it is a beautiful ride.
I had read somewhere that Chiavari, a town of 30000 inhabitants does not figure in a typical travel itinerary and I start to appreciate that as I ride into the town. I have come here chasing what is known as a Chiavari chair. I do not know much about this chair except that I am intrigued by what Gio Ponti once remarked of this chair — ‘a normal light thin and convenient chair’ and a picture of Karl Lagerfeld holding the chair effortlessly in his hand, the top part of the frame nestled between his fingers.
I stop at a cafe once I enter the town- it’s a random stop to give my chattering teeth a break and to put in some warm liquids. Once I place my order for a shot of Espresso, I ask the barista about where I could find Chiavari chairs. He responds back in Italian, quite animatedly and I look at him with a now familiar ‘rabbit caught in the headlights look’. I then whip out one of my ‘survival’ lines… ‘ Io non capisco Italiano’ and Tu parli Inglese?’. A customer at the store walks towards me, asks me for my mobile and opens the map and enters the name Levaggi Sedie. There is an air of conviction in her gesture.
I have little idea if she is guiding me to the place I want to go to- whether this would be a store or a workshop and if the place recommended by her would have anything to do with Chiavari chairs at all? I look at the map and it shows a distance of 7 kms and I decide to go with the flow. I whip out another of my lines to the barista and her — ‘Grazie mille. Piacere di conscerla’ as I begin to exit. They chuckle amusedly.
25 minutes and a few wrong turns later I am in front of a store with a humble board that read F.lli Levaggi- Sedie Originali Di Chiavari. On the first look, I can’t see a workshop and I am beginning to feel mildly disappointed. I get into the store… it seems empty — I open the door and call out a few times. Eventually a tall, bearded man comes out to meet me. I explain the purpose of my visit- Chasing Chiavari Chairs. His name is Gabriele. Along with his brother Paolo, they run both the workshop and the store. I request indulgence, both for his time and for a tour of the workshop and he obliges with grace and generosity. And just like that, I am inside wonderland and start to experience it — the history, the wood and its beautiful smells, the crafting by master craftsmen and the final product.
F.lli Levaggi is a family of carpenters who have been crafting these chairs for more than three generations. Today they have customers from around the world. The chair itself was invented in 1807 by Giuseppe Descalzi — one that is an icon of design and craftsmanship, one that grandly reconciles the contradiction of extreme lightness and surprising sturdiness.
What makes the Chiavari chair so light and yet so sturdy? Is it the quality of the cherrywood, maple, beech or the lemonwood that comes from the trees of the Ligurian hinterland forests? Is it the cutting of the tree that happens only in certain seasons and phases of the moon? Is it the drying of the wood that is done in a natural way — a process where the dehydration happens gradually over a two to five year period ( you heard it right -the drying of the wood can take that long)? Is it the manual modelling of some of the parts accompanied by hours of sanding to achieve the highest levels of perfection? Is it because everything is done by hand with a degree of attention and love in slow time — well almost everything except the shaping of the boards that is done using a hand guided machine? Is it the cannelletti — those horizontal beams that bind the slender legs of the chair together? Or is it the art of weaving the seat with super-strong Indonesian rush, the warp and weft patterns being choreographed into its place by hands that have done it many thousand times over?
Maybe all of them and more. Maybe it is the deep belief they have in what they do. In their words… “we have never given in to the opportunity of mass-production. We believe that the “know-how”, achieved through sweat and tears of entire generations of craftsmen, is an invaluable heritage that will be protected and passed on to our young. We love molding and giving new life to every single element in our chairs. Evaluating the quality of the wood, knowing how to read the natural grain, enhancing its peculiarities, they are all stages that we are not willing to outsource to a heartless automated process”
I lift a chair with two of my fingers and swing it around. I sit on a couple of them to feel the emotion it stirs in me. I am possibly beginning to understand Gio Ponti’s fascination with them and why it possibly inspired his Superleggera. I start to figure out why designers world over are seduced by it. Or why it was the chair of choice for 1200 guests who attended Jackie and JFK’s wedding in 1953. Or that it has been used in the dining halls of Queen Victoria’s palace, the Presidential dinners at the White House and Oscar Ceremonies over the years.
I move around the workshop for a while, with a sense of awe and loss. Awe at seeing what goes into the making of a Chiavari Chair and a sense of loss that I would just not have enough time to absorb it. Time to absorb the sheer simplicity and beauty of it and what goes into making it. And yet feeling a great sense of comfort in knowing that anything that has been given so much time and attention will not fail to evoke joy, forever. As I thank and bid goodbye to Gabriel, I reflect on my journey towards Chiavari and I know that this pilgrimage was worth it, in every way.
References:
https://www.levaggisedie.it/en/authentic-chiavari-chairs-made-in-italy/
