CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 3/11/2019

High design humor in 'The Danish Chair'

Gerrit Rietveld's cantilevered 1932-33 Zig-Zag Chair, produced by Dutch manufacturer and retail outlet, Metz & Co., is reproduced from The Danish Chair: An International Affair, published by new D.A.P. publisher, Strandberg. The Zig-Zag Chair is sculptural and simple, Christian Holmsted Olesen writes, citing the designer's striking focus on construction. "Rietveld was a member of the Dutch design group De Stijl, whose proponents favored abstract and distorted forms. He himself said, ‘It isn’t a chair but a designer joke.’ In other words, this was not about comfort or ergonomics but about pursuing the idea of a chair— an abstraction that challenged the very concept of a chair." Although the chair plays with the illusion of having been constructed in one multi-angular piece, it also makes very deliberate use of joinery and screws. "For the modernists, honest, easily decoded structures were a goal in themselves," Olesen concludes.