POWERHOUSE COLLECTION

'Scape' armchair designed by Grant Featherston

Object No. 92/1970

One of the new wave of Australian designers to emerge in the immediate post-war years, Grant Featherston (1922-1995) designed his first chair in 1947. In the early 1950s he developed the now famous 'Contour' range of chairs. First launched in 1951, the 'Contour' was an immediate success, its innovative plywood shell formed using a process that Featherston developed himself in the absence of suitable plywood bending technology locally. In 1957 Featherston was appointed consultant designer to Aristoc Industries, a Melbourne manufacturer of metal furniture. This highly fruitful collaboration resulted in the production of a variety of chairs including the 'Mitzi' (1957), 'Scape' (1960), the 'Expo 67 talking chair' and the 'Stem' chair of 1969. In 1966 Featherston formed a partnership with his wife Mary Featherston (nee Curry, born England 1943), an interior designer who had studied at RMIT. Their 'Expo 67' chair, with its polystyrene shell, was only the beginning of a run of chairs that, in the spirit of the times, explored the limitless possibilities of plastics in the creation of innovative seating forms: ' ... the integrated one-piece plastic chair [represented] ... the pinnacle of the furniture designer's aspirations. Plastics and moulding technology expresses the synergetic challenge most eloquently. No other material so inherently speaks of body and process, offering a 'negative' of the human body.' (Grant Featherston, 'Design reflections', In Future, no 4, Feb-March 1987. Quoted in Terence Lane, Featherston Chairs, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1988, p12) The rotation-moulded, polyethylene 'Stem' chair took 18 months to reach production stage and was one of the most technologically sophisticated chairs ever made in Australia. It, and other innovative designs by the Featherstons helped expand the technological capabilities of local furniture manufacturers at a time when there viability was constantly under threat from foreign imports. The Featherstons' efforts to keep the local industry competitive while supplying the market with chairs that were technologically and stylistically equal to overseas examples resulted in an important body of work that has significantly enriched Australia's design history.

Loading...

Summary

Object Statement

Armchair, 'Scape', steel / wood / foam / vinyl, designed by Grant Featherston, made by Aristoc Industries, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 1957-1960

Physical Description

Chair with a curving petal shaped seat and separate curved, shield shaped back. Both are mounted on a black steel frame with tapering legs. The seats are upholstered in white vinyl which is moulded with a weave pattern.

PRODUCTION

Notes

Grant Featherston is regarded as one of Australia's most important designers since the second world war. The 'Scape' chair was an early product of his highly successful association with Aristoc Industries Pty Ltd, a leading Australian manufacturer of metal furniture. Aristoc's slogan was 'Planned perfection through machines', and the facilities of its factory provided Featherston with the opportunity to be more ambitious in his approach to furniture design. His access to metal technologies allowed him to achieve a new level of refinement for his dynamic forms. In the 'Scape' the back and seat components with their dramatic curving planes, appear to float over the tapered steel frame.

SOURCE

Credit Line

Purchased 1992

Acquisition Date

8 December 1992

Copyright for the above image is held by the Powerhouse and may be subject to third-party copyright restrictions. Please submit an Image Licensing Enquiry for information regarding reproduction, copyright and fees. Text is released under Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivative licence.

Image Licensing Enquiry

Object Enquiry