It takes about ten days to fall in love with this chair, the monobloc white plastic chair, but sure enough, you really come to love these things for their comfort, lightness and intelligent use of physical planes in support of the human body. Some are, however, more aesthetically appealing than others, so I logged all the different kinds I could find at the retreat center last Saturday (after silence was lifted, of course)(see below).
Monobloc's at Manila´s Metropolitan Museum (Photo from postcool´s flickr.)
While I've fallen in love with these guys once before, their ubiquitous nature has not been lost on others. Jens Thiel has created a whole blog around tracking the design and development of the monobloc all around the world since 2004. You can check him out here:
Monoblocs at Wanzhou – Three Gorges Reservoir (Photo from Christian Y. Schmidt)
My favorite of all the ones I sat in was this one, made in Italy, but otherwise with no distinctive markings. It had the best bones and a much more appealing aesthetic. In my mind, it was the Porsche of these chairs.
At the Vipassana Center, they'd also come up with a remarkable little hack that made the chairs MUCH better. Cutting open tennis balls and taping them to the feet made the chairs silent against the floor and gave them a nicer weight (that they otherwise lacked). It also helped them from breaking or tossing the sitter, as the back legs slid back instead of buckling, which happens often.
Where to buy the best ones? You can find a ton of there here in Google, but I don't have a perfect answer here. However, rather than own these things, one day I plan to take the Italian one and have it cast in aluminum, so I can have my own set solid design icons in a more upscale material.
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Me = speechless. Am I missing something here? Private joke?
I know, right? The wad of tape at the bottom of each leg? The ubiquitous wal-mart-iness of them? Also, the blogger at "It's Lovely, I'll Take It" has an awesome series of Chairturday posts featuring Chair in its many tacky-real-estate adventures.
I, too, am not getting it...maybe I need another 9 days!
AAAaaargh!
I hate these chairs - they cheapen everything. When I'm checking out hotels with patios or restaurants online I steer clear of those with the ubiquitous plastic chairs. They even use them in Paris and Greece. They suck, big time.
Think I could spend a lifetime looking at this chair and still not fall in love. And if one has to add tennis balls to the bottom of chair legs for stability then I say buy a different chair that is made well and not hideous.
So the chair makes "intelligent use of physical planes in support of the human body" even though "buckling ... happens often"? There are loads of other cheap chairs that don't buckle quite so readily. Maybe by "intelligent use of physical planes in support of the human body" you just meant that it has both a seat and a back, in relatively comfortable proximity to each other? I don't know. I don't mind the pink version above because in their context they look cheerful, but I think the basic white version cast in aluminum would look and feel very similar to a basic Emeco chair, only uglier and more expensive. And would represent contrived populism rather than good design.
To my knowledge these single casting plastic chairs were first done in France in the mid 80's and rumor is that Iconic French designer Pierre Poulin was invlved in the orignal design. As bland and generic as they have become, if you put them in contect they were very inovative for the day. They are easy to stamp out by the millions and cost nothing and hold up outdoors in any climate. Sort of the ulitimate in industrial design for the masses. Unfortunatly the actual designs these days are really lacking. They could be so much better like the Jersey Seymour design for Magis.
I had to look at the calendar to check and make sure it wasn't April 1st!
If I were to award a plastic chair with honors, it would be Umbra's Oh Chair, which I actually do think was an instant classic. Not these - in any version - and especially with tennis balls duct-taped to the feet!
Is it April 1st already?
I agree with the majority if posters thus far. I don't get it. I hate these chairs with all my heart! HazelSmith99, you are right! They cheapen everything! Ugh...maybe that Vipassana retreat was not such a good idea, after all!
oops! that was supposed to read...majority OF posters, not "if"...
So many people are cranky today. I think that the chair meets many needs - for the outdoors, for extra chairs that can be stacked, for a funky/retro look.
I like them - not for my French or English or Danish living room but there are good places for them. Lighten up folks.
Whatever happened to a good old fashioned nylon woven web chair, with a little bit of wood on the handles, plus they fold up....don't BUCKLE, and can be updated with new webbing as the mood strikes....How other than shear cheapness has this happened? Only to be replaced by this....EVIL CHAIR!
Love the style of those Pink Chairs...however as an Antique Dealer i am just a big fan of the wooden chair like the Bentwood chair which i now see reproductions of everywhere at double the price of an original. I say funky/retro is fine for a trend but i am sold on the classic look of a simple wooden chair.
Make it in metal or wood and I might come around to its purported charms. But I will never love a cheap plastic chair that can buckle, tip, crack and pinch, not to mention promote sweating. Just ain't gonna happen.
It's the ubiquity, silly!
Glad to hear there are options to the original lean-back-collapse versions altho:
there was one of these chairs towards the back of the room above Saddam Hussein's "hidey-hole." That was my ubiquity epiphany!
AT, thx for yer support and updated options. My pride is furnishings that are recyclable, don't need to be moved; keeps me light on my feet!
Plastic chairs, in general, have too many non-redeeming traits to be considered great in terms of form or function. Unfortunately, in about 30 to 50 years, people likely will be hailing them as "late 20th century modern". Much as today's young adults are enamored with mid-century modern, and my parents were charmed by 19th century "antiques". The cycle repeats. Design becomes a matter of curiosity and reverence for the past. It doesn't necessarily matter if the objects are all that deserving or not. In the meantime, I hope someone improves upon these chairs, perhaps keeping the spirit of the design but enhancing their functionality. Kind of like Volkswagen and the Bug.
No. Just no.
I hate those chairs.
it would seem these are the "antithesis" for good taste. i'm all for simplicity & function...but these chairs...*not.*
The classic bentwood chair is esthetically pleasing and just as light and easy to move as is the plastic chair. I've even seen plastic versions at IKEA. I cannot stand the Monobloc.
Okay, they're not the most beautiful chairs and some variants are truly hideous. They beat out most other plastic and inexpensive outdoor chairs in comfort, however, especially if you're, um... creaky. (When I was banged up after and accident and subsequent surgery, this was my go-to backyard chair at a time when sitting upright was difficult. And my elderly relatives all loved them.) Umbra's Oh chair is just for looking at; I'd rather stand than put my butt in that.
Lol, this is hilarious. It's supposed to be hilarious, right? Like those horrendous denim planters?
http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/dc/at-europe/diy-jean-potholder-washington-dc-057010
huh uh...no...not.
These remind me of my teens! My mum gave away the old mismatched wooden school chairs we had to a family who had an awful house fire, and we used these chairs for 9 years in our kitchen.
They are far from pretty, but I have a sentimental spot for them!
sometimes useful chair, yes. worthy of a post, no. it keeps your butt off the ground, but that's about all that can be said for it.
These chairs bring out the beast in me. I hate them. So tacky.
You're kidding, right? These are the worst. You find them at the cheapest beach bars, diners, car washes, ... Why? What happened to you during this retreat? Did they brainwash you? Concerned get well wishes from Berlin.
lol
I agree with everyone- I think these chairs are the ugliest things ever. We have the nice wooden folding chairs from IKEA. Much prettier, and they have a hole in the back so you can hang it on a hook if need be.
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/90077033
Just a very bad chair that makes very bad every place where it is placed.
I avoid to sit down at the bars where these kind of chair are normally put outdoor.
A horrible waste of landfill space.
the artist roy mcmakin did an interesting spin on the famous plastic chair by casting it in metal.
http://chancellor.ucsf.edu/MBA/artwork/mcmakin3.jpg
I like the pink versions of these chairs. I understand the preference for wood or metal chairs but those are hardly green- if these white chairs were made from recycled materials they would be doubly awesome.
these plastic chairs do have a use...i guess. they can be stacked sure but they also can come in handy when x-seating is needed in the back yard or game room.
the best thing is suppose is that you do not have to worry about someone stealing them.
i agree. i miss the webbed chairs, the predecessor to the awful tubular plastic chair. neither of the plastic chairs last very long and i do not think that they are very comfortable in humid weather. they only sit for yrs. in a landfill. sad.
thanks for listening.
As I was reading this I was asking myself why am I wasting my time? Ahhh the downside of the www and the downside of my curiosity and thirst for info...Although, I do like the pink chairs.
They're useful, I have to say. They're pretty sturdy (more so than the Ikea folding chairs we have), and stack nicely. I want a stack for garden parties, and will spray paint them bright colors - if I can find a more tolerable-looking chair. I could live with the pink ones.
I like them. I'm a geek so I appreciate that they were this techno marvel back in the day. They work, and at little cost. I have one in my living room among much finer furnishings. It's funny because at an outdoor bar or a political rally they are topography, completely anonymous. Put one in your living room and it attracts serious attention. Like passionate crazy serious attention. It angers some, delights others. Some laugh at it. I also have one in my bedroom, next to my bed with an old-ish industrial/shop lamp clipped to it. The chair is primarily a nightstand that can be sat on, and the lamp is a reading lamp. Neither has tennis balls as feet, neither will.