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Presentation drawing for 'Torsion Box Shell Details for Dunlopillo chair'
Brian Long, born 1934 - Enlarge image
Presentation drawing for 'Torsion Box Shell Details for Dunlopillo chair'
- Object:
Design
- Place of origin:
UK (probably, made)
- Date:
ca. 1971 (made)
- Artist/Maker:
Brian Long, born 1934 (designer)
- Materials and Techniques:
Collage, pencil, pen and ink and watercolour on artists board
- Credit Line:
Given by Brian Long
- Museum number:
E.1614-1977
- Gallery location:
Prints & Drawings Study Room, level F, case EDUC, shelf 10, box G
This design for a chair by Brian Long using a torsion box shell won the Dunlopillo Design Award, 1971. The two variable parabolic shells are made from a vacuum-formed sheet. The shell is formed to contain the dunlopreme polyether foam upholstery without special tailoring. The chair would have an upholstery cover of stretch nylon. Estimated retail price is noted as £40. With its bright colours and stylish contours, this design was probably meant to appeal to both office workers and domestic users.
By the turn of the 1970s, the hippy idyll was over. Avant garde Italians, such as Paolo Deganello and Ettore Sottsass, rejected the certainties of the modern movement, while the US architect Frank Gehry made chairs from banal materials such as corrugated cardboard. Brian Long was following Ettore Sottsass, who was also experimenting with injection-moulded ABS and polyurethane foam for his 1970–71 'Synthesis 45' chair.
