Mid2Mod: tulip

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Monday, January 23, 2012

You look so familiar: Part 6 - Tulips

Although closely akin to last week's chairs with wing-style arms, these chairs deserve a category all their own in this final installment of my "You look so familiar" series. Perhaps two of the most iconic designs of the mid-century era are the DAX chair by Charles and Ray Eames and the Tulip chair by Eero Saarinen. I consider it less than coincidental that Charles Eames and Saarinen worked together on the Organic chair, to which these chairs bear a striking resemblance.

Interestingly, the 1950 bentwood chair by Real Dorica combines design elements of several of the chairs in this series. It has legs much like a stacking chair, plywood wing arms, and a separate back much like a molded plywood chair or a shell chair. Yet, to me, it belongs in this category because of its tulip shape.

Burke Tulip chairs were quite obviously inspired by Saarinen's Tulip chairs, and they often receive harsh derision as being blatant knock-offs, which I'm not sure is entirely fair. I hope this series of posts has succeeded in demonstrating that most designers, consciously or not, are influenced by pieces they consider beautiful. The work of venerated designers, such as Pierre Paulin's Little Tulip chair and Robin Day's Tub chair, clearly show more than their creators' passing familiarity with the work of those who came before them.

Even if "new" designs are not near-replicas of earlier designs...although some most certainly are...there can be no doubt that many designers have lifted an arm design here, a leg design there, sometimes creating furniture that is little more than a composite of all their favorite pieces.