Jasper Morrison - Basel Chair - Presentation

Presentation: Eleonore

Medium and Value: Morgane

Style and Originality: Adrien

Expression and Signification: Nathan

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Medium

When you look at this chair, it seems to be a classic wooden one. But actually there is a crucial innovation: it is not only made of wood but also of plastic. I will explain that by saying how we can reproduce it.

You have to take a piece of beech from which you make the base frame of the chair it means everything that is beige. (Picture: red Basel Chair) Then to make the seat and the backrest, you need ASA plastic (acrylonitrile styrène acrylate plastic) dyed throughout. But there is a very notable way to join the plastic elements to the wooden base. While the thin plastic seat is fixed to a load-bearing wooden ring by an ingenious plug-in mechanism – without the use of any screws – the back features two web-like vertical projections that are inserted into precision-milled grooves of the elongated rear chair legs. As a last detail, you can add glides for carpets or alternatively felt glides for hard surfaces. Of course, you can use different types of beech and different colors of plastic but it is Adrien that will talk about that later on.

Thus, you know how to reproduce a Basel Chair but I’m quite sure you prefer that someone else does it and then you go and buy it when it is finished. So for that we have to see the quantitative aspect value of the Basel Chair to know a little more about the production and distribution.

Value

The Basel Chair is designed by Jasper Morrison for Vitra. It is Swiss manufacturer. According to their web site (http://www.vitra.com), it “is a furniture company dedicated to developing healthy, intelligent, inspiring and durable solutions for the office, the home and for public spaces.”

The Basel Chair is produced in Germany, in one of these two production sites: Weil am Rhein or Neuenburg. They don’t say a lot about the production of the Basel Chair, for example I find nothing about the costs of production but I look around and it seems that beech and ASA plastic are not very expensive. But Vitra really insists on its efforts when it comes to sustainability. In their website, they have a whole part about it and in the instructions for use of the Basel Chair they say “We prioritize the long service life of our products, seek to ensure that parts subject to wear and tear can be easily exchanged, and wherever possible use recyclable materials.” It also matters for Jasper Morrison that thinks designers have to create products that must last: “Thanks to the explosion of media coverage, much of today’s design is eye candy, looking for its place on the page of glossy magazines rather than solving any problems or addressing the bigger picture of what makes a successful design in the long term.” Jasper Morrison in an interview for Vitra, available in the website of the company.

Now, these efforts to create a sustainable product seduce you and you want to buy it. In the website of Jasper Morrison (http://www.jaspermorrison.com/html/9316679.html), they give the address of a shop: 24b Kingsland Road London E2 8DA. You can also go to the webside of Vitra: you give your country, your region and they direct you to a local dealer that you can contact to know the price and the availability of the product. But you can also buy it online. It is around 320 euros or £220, £240 on website as http://www.lamenuiserie.com in French or http://momentumstore.com/ where there is a discount if you are interested.

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Style and originality

One can easily think that this chair looks like any classical and sober wooden chair. One might think that it has no personality. Nothing could be more false.

Let’s have a more precise look at it.

First both the bottom and the back are finer than the usual, thanks to the plastic material. This makes it more comfortable.

In addition, the shape makes it hard for the sitter to slip over: the back is curved and the bottom too, ready to receive the sitter.

Furthermore, the bottom is maintained stuck with the wooden structure without screw: they fit together. A similar principle is used to make the back and the back feet fitting together.

The absence of obvious screw gives the Basel chair a smooth personality. It looks sweeter than an classic kitchen chair.

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Expression

What is it used for and how does it function?

As a chair, I think everybody knows what the Basel Chair is used for… Maybe as… a chair…

We have seen with Adrien and Morgane that this chair is particularly comfortable so that that you maybe use it more than other chairs but I don’t know exactly what your relation with chairs is…

The instructions for use of the Basel Chair say: "In compliance with due diligence and the law Basel Chair may be used as an office swivel chair only. Should it be used for other purposes there is an increased accident risk (e.g., use as a climbing aid)."

We see the importance of using the object not only as an art object and that makes me come to the most important of my part about expression in which we will actually see how Morrison puts a stress on the importance of the design object first as an everyday life object.

Signification

A complete concept design is expressed through the Basel Chair. In short, Morris concept of design has the following characteristics:

Objects must be functional, creations are not only visual but are also objects with which we live and that we use (à Organization in 2009 (Arts décoratifs) of the exposition “take a seat” in which visitors can seat on 21 different chairs, not only look at them). The Basel Chair is functional, it is comfortable and simple.

Object must be authentic and simple. Morrison is an inconspicuous designer. His Basel Chair is a revisited version of a classic the wooden chair. It is rather simple and sober. In this video we can see how he emphasizes the importance of usefulness of the object. He also considers that object should not be spoilt with ornaments and we can see that with the Basel Chair. With that conception, he is in line with the Japanese Mingei movement (1920s 1930s in Japan = objects must be used by the masses, functional in daily life etc.) and with the views of Adolf Loos (end of the 19^th century Austrian designer who puts a stress on the fact that modernity implies deletion of ornament).

This concept of design expressed through the Basel Chair is embodied in the concept of supernormal design.

“Design, which is supposed to be responsible for the man-made environment we all inhabit, seems to be polluting it instead. Its historic and idealistic goal to serve industry and the happy consuming masses at the same time, of conceiving things easier to make and better to live with, has been side-tracked.”

Pleasure and signification that is given to objects does not entirely come from design but also from their day-to-day use. That is why with Naoto Fukasawa (Japanese guy who designed electronic devices) they created the exposition super normal that was in Bordeaux Last Year.

The Basel Chair is something that conveys well this point of view. As opposed to current “design objects”, the Basel Chair also gives pleasure through its use. We can say that beyond the normal vision of the chair, the Basel Chair is supernormal…

To conclude my part I would like to wonder why this chair has been given this name “Basel Chair”. Is it an allusion to the city of Basel which is known for modern art.