"Design Maciço"

As part of the Art on chairs project, we would like to put forward a proposal for an exhibition on the subject of chairs made of solid wood.

The subject of design, in a period in which its role is being radically redefined, involves the rediscovery of the possible superiority of natural over artificial materials, even in relation to mass production. Chairs made out of plastic, that may be quite well designed, continue to be produced, chairs that with their low price and huge production runs consider themselves to be the only chair possible for all mankind. These chairs may be designed in Italy, produced in China, and distributed throughout the world by multinational furniture groups. The blanket coverage of the plastic chair is however creating renewed interest in those made out of natural materials.
With an exhibition dedicated to the solid-wood chair, we intend to demonstrate not only the superiority of natural materials over artificial, but also the quality of finishing that was once only achieved manually but can now be attained by the use of computerised machinery.
We would also like to make a contribution towards a process of re-establishment of production in areas such as Paredes that have a great tradition of production of this kind. Today, this seems to be the only possible alternative when faced with the economic, environmental and social inequalities created by traditional production methods.
Local traditions of production, different in each area, must be valued and brought up-to-date by means of an advanced plan that deals with the demands that emerge as part of the design process. We plan to substitute the “chair that is the same for the whole of mankind” with the chair that is produced in a specific area, rich in culture and in an attitude of "crafts production" that will eventually need to be updated by the introduction of computerised machinery. Manual craftsmanship, skills and knowledge, once they have been updated, need to be acquired as a resource. This culture of craft must not be seen as a synonym for all that is backward, and then forgotten, nor must it be seen as the heavy weight of tradition with nothing to say to the present, and ignored, but rather it must be rethought and reconsidered as an added value with which to benefit the production of limited runs of products belonging to each specific area, until it reaches a point at which it can itself be considered ‘modern’. The exhibition will showcase around thirty chairs crafted out of solid wood, works by design masters such as Wright, Gio Ponti and Gaudì, as well as by contemporary designers such as Jasper Morrison and Naoto Fukasawa, and will also include 'anonymous' works, testaments of popular culture, on which the richness of the culture and production values of an area were built.

Paolo Deganello
Milan 11.09.2011