Screen/Print #54: Galen Cranz on Why We Need to Rethink the Chair

2017-04-28T12:04:00-04:00

Besides buildings (obviously), chairs are probably architects favorite things to design. There’s Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona chair and Gerrit Reitveld’s Zig-Zag chair; Arne Jacobson’s Model 3107 and Frank Llloyd Wright’s Peacock chair. Today, the tradition continues, with architects from David Adjaye to Rem Koolhaas to Zaha Hadid all designing places to perch. Yet, for all their formal grace and beauty, these chairs rarely break the mold. Invariably, they are designed around an upright individual sitting at a right angle. And, according to Galen Cranz, a Professor of Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, such traditional chair designs just don’t cut it—and they're even harming our health.

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Screen/Print #54: Galen Cranz on Why We Need to Rethink the Chair