I bought this chair in an antique market in Switzerland. Do you know anything about this chair (date, designer, origin)?
Eames
Looks like an eames H-base fiberglass side chair. Probably made by Vitra if its in Europe, Herman Miller if in the US. CHeck the bottom for a pointy M logo.
http://www.eamescollector.com
Wow, I must admit I'm a bit...
Wow, I must admit I'm a bit surprised to meet a design addict that hasn't come across this particular chair before or the man behind it. But anyway, that's really a nice colour for this chair and it looks quite fiberish, which I especially love! Enjoy 🙂
Antonella
Fiberglass is fairly inert when it is sealed, as in the case of the chairs. If the surfaces is very worn or the chair is cracked some of the glassfibers may be exposed.
Jean Baptiste - I hope you do some research into the work of Charles and Ray Eames. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by your find.
LuciferSum, chairs may get...
LuciferSum, chairs may get worn, or crack. It's normal when they
are used.
And it is bad for people who work with it either in manufacturing
or in prototype making.
There are so many harmless materials around, why insisting on using
fibreglass? Every object that has been made in fibreglass can be made
of other plastic materials which are harmless. So you don't have to
abolish a design that you like, but just thinking it in a safer material.
There are many
potentially harmful materials in use every day, employed because they do the job best. Their correct use minimizes their danger.
After the methods of making glass fibers were discovered in the 1930's, and phenolic and polyester resins were developed in the same period, it was found that the compressive strength of resin and the tensile strength of glass fiber could be combined into a high strength-to-weight-ratio material. Boating and aeronautical applications followed shortly. It was natural for designers of furniture and automobiles to take up the use of this new material.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass-reinforced_plastic
Eh, Antonella, this chair...
Eh, Antonella, this chair was not made yesterday, alright. It's a vintage chair. So I really can't change the fact that yes, it's made of fiberglass that's potentially harmful to the people and enviroment nearby. What's done is done. I mean, this chair was made in a time where the disadvantages of fiberglass weren't discovered yet or perhaps not taken seriously. Though now we've gotten smarter and this design legend is not produced in fiberglass anymore. But there's no reason to why all the old Eames shell chairs can't be used and enjoyed. The fiberglass threads have a particular charme you won't find in the newer version. And as LuciferSum writes, the fiberglass is effectively sealed in all the old chairs with a thick clear coating. And should this be worn down through the many years of use and expose the fiberglass, then the chair has clearly served it's purpose well and you can just throw it out. No big deal.
Weapons of Mass Destruction
Radius Engineering claims their fiberglass bomb shelters are made of an inert fiberglass material that is stronger, cleaner, brighter and safer than concrete for protection against Weapons of Mass Destruction. The sky is falling!
http://www.bomb-shelter.net/concrete-shelter-dangers
bakelight and fiberglass
Both of these resins saw there day but they were great and will always been in my heart
I hate to say this I was sanding on some Eames arm shells yesterday trying to get some magic marker that some dumb person wrote numbers on the back of these chairs and yes I am feeling little fibers today in my hands, plus the burn of paint remover but i did get the marks off, not easy, they really needed a hard sand and a lot of paint remover but they look good since they were white fiberglass... if they were orange or yellow they would have been ready for the dumpster.
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