New Chairs: Design, Technology and Materials

The most collectible of furniture, chairs are a visual symbol of their period. New Chairs offers more than 70 examples of contemporary chair design worldwide, perfect for the postmodern, high-tech, high-concept age. Chairs by top-tier designers such as Tom Dixon, the Campana Brothers, Frank Gehry, and Massimo Vignelli sit side-by-side with those of up-and-comers who are contributing fresh and edgy designs to the field. Chairs of new and reprocessed materials, chairs that knock-down or stack in imaginative ways, chairs impossible to imagine before computer-aided design, even chairs that push the traditional concept of utility are all present. Inflatable, sculptural, and illuminated chairs apply imaginative dimensions to this ubiquitous object. New Chairs includes concept drawings, prototypes, manufacturing details, and insights into the creative process in the designers' own words, all accompanied by color photos of each piece making this the most complete survey to date of contemporary chair design.

Mel Byars has taught at the Pratt Institute and the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York. He is the author of numerous books on design, and has written for a range of international design and art publications.