Chair, ABS, resin, upholstery and foam, 'Torsion Box Shell Chair', designed by Brian Long, Nottingham, 1970.

The chair has a thin (2mm) white plastic shell which is upholstered in dark purple at the front. The shell makes a sound half circle for the seat before rising in a gentle S-curve with a rounded top to form the back. The form is made explicit by a symmetric diminishing repetition of the outer shape moulded into the shell. The original 'air skin' upholstery (strech nylon with a synthetic coating) had been degraded with significant losses and was replaced. During the re-upholstery the original foam was replaced as well.

The Torsion Box Shell chair is the full size submission for the Dunlopillo design awards of 1970. It was given to Paul Briggs, lecturer in furniture and product design at Nottingham Trent University. Long had joined the furniture design course at Trent Polytechnic as a lecturer in 1975 and gave the chair to Briggs in the early 1980s when he was clearing out his studio. Briggs stored the chair in a garage which accounts for the extremely bright whiteness of the shell.

Briggs described the manufacture process thus; ‘the original patterns for it as I remember were made in fibreglass, the original full-size design work being sculptured up in plaster and clay to a very high standard first, then the fibreglass pattern was made, then a mould was taken using a white gel coat, backed up by layers of fibreglass to give strength etc, foam was added [this is the connection with dunlopillow] and then it was upholstered.” This chair is though made of ABS and on the specification drawing the material of the vacuum formed shell is described as 2mm ABS.

The designer and furniture maker Brian Long (b. 1934) taught at Trent Polytechnic (later Nottingham Trent University) and produced designs for a number of companies including Heals, John Alan Designs and Dunlop Ltd. He was particularly well known for his work with polyurethane and latex foam, winning the Dunlop Aeropreen Award in 1968 and the Dunlopillo awards in 1969 and 1970. He was included in the V&A exhibition ‘The way we live now’ in 1978 and from this exhibition four drawings of furniture were acquired by the Prints Drawings and Paintings Department. This includes a specification drawing for the Torsion Box Shell chair.

W.15-2011