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The optimistic, consumer-oriented pop culture of the 1960's was typified by the striking and powerful image of the ball chair. The form seems to float above the compact base, giving it a space capsule image.
Aarnio was an innovator in the field of fiberglass and plastics, and the technology. The simple and powerful geometric form of the sphere is cool, polished and hard, which gives way to a soft, and cozy interior, where the sitter can isolate and protect oneself from the outside world even to the extent of changing the view at will by swiveling on the base. Thus the ball chair is a crossover piece, a link between furniture and architecture.
It is interesting that by using one of the simplest geometric forms, Eero could produce such a remarkably unconventional design: a room with in a room, with a cozy and calm atmosphere all its own. The sitter is protected from the outside world in a private place for relaxing or taking a phone call. Turning around its own axis on the base the view to the outer space is variable for the user and thus he is not completely excluded from world outside.
"The idea of the chair was very obvious. We had moved to our first home and I had started my free-lance career in 1962. We had a home but no proper big chair, so I decided to make one, but some way a really new one. After some drawing I noticed that the shape of the chair had become so simple that it was merely a ball. I pinned the full scale drawing on the wall and ?sat' in the chair to see how my head would move when sitting inside it. Being the taller one of us I ?sat' in the chair and my wife drew the course of my head on the wall. This is how I determined the height of the chair. Since I aimed at a ball shape, the other lines were easy to draw, just remembering that the chair would have to fit through a doorway. After this I made the first prototype myself using an inside mould, which has been made using the same principle as a glider fuselage or wing. I covered the plywood body mould with wet paper and laminated the surface with fiberglass, rubbed down the outside, removed the mould from inside, had it upholstered and added the leg. In the end I installed the red telephone on the inside wall of the chair. The naming part of the chair was easy, the BALL CHAIR was born." -eero
The authentic Vitra Miniature always comes in the little wooden packing box from the Vitra Design Museum Collection. |
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