I'm sure you must have seen such a stalk of chairs a hundred times in your life. And, the very first glance of them at an event would spoil your mood, so read up to know why.
The presence of this chair has always confused me because no matter where in the world you’re from, you have already sat on this chair at some point in your life. This is the so-called Monobloc. Probably, the best selling chair in history. And still, it is getting a lot of hate. So much hate that in Basel, Switzerland, the chair even became a political issue. For years it was forbidden by law to place these chairs in outdoor areas of restaurants as people complaint that they destroyed the cityscape.
But, how did we even get the Monobloc, and is it an example of good or bad design? You can find these chairs pretty much everywhere, outside of cafes in Nainital, inside the office in Riyadh, or at an event on the grounds in New York.
These chairs made their way into our lives. Now for anyone interested in design. Its design is somewhat fascinating, for one might think that a chair would be an object that doesn’t need to change fundamentally over time, but chairs do change.
Chair design can adapt to shape and material to a specific function, it can break convention by challenging our idea what a chair should look like.
Just like designing other objects, designing a chair requires us to combine functionality and visual appeal.
But, chair design can also reflect a certain disguise like how Marcel Breuer in 1927 made out of tubular steel and inspired by bicycle production which was laying the groundwork for much of modern design.
Or, pop art introducing strong colour pallets in the 60s and 70s and the advancement in space exploration inspiring futuristic furniture in private homes like a bunch of circle and egg-shaped designer chairs.
The Monobloc is very different, it is used to widely that it is sort of meaningless. Take a look at this photo, where was it taken and when? It’s almost impossible to tell. This is an observation made by American scholar and blogger Ethan Zuckerman who has described the Monobloc as a context-free object. We tend to associate most objects with a certain time and place. If someone shows us a random photo, chances are that the objects in it will give us the hint as through when and where the photo was taken.
The Monobloc chair, hardly allows such conclusions to be made. The chairs can be found in all parts of the world and it is an object so immaculate if you saw one laying around a beach, you couldn’t be whether someone bought it there or it floated from a different part of the planet. The Monobloc might be a practical example of globalization but it can also be a reminder of how locally different every object around us still are.
There are critical views on this chair and some rightly know that the Monobloc does not represent the sustainable design. Some see the chair as a prime example of mass production of uniform good that disregard any sense of individuality. Monoblocs can be used as an object against globalization as they represent a decline in the local culture. But, we can always turn the argument around their success doesn’t come from anywhere, it’s due to the fact that they are affordable and affordability matters. Since it allows social equality and economical advancements.
The Monobloc is an object that is deeply democratic, you might be thinking I’m creating a lot of fuss about a chair, but that is kind of the point. Focusing on this object can allow all of us to think about more abstract questions. And these conflicting views on a chair is part of the reason why many artist and designers have created artwork using Monobloc.
Where do these chairs originate from? Arguably, the Monobloc was made in 1946 by Canadian Designer Douglas C Simpson. However, at the time, The molding process was not suitable for cheat mass production and the whole concept might have been ahead of its time.
In the 60s, Designers got interested in the idea of plastic molded chairs dotingly the Bofinger Chair by Helmut Batzner (1964) and chair universal by Joe Colombo (1987) which is made of several individuals molded polymers parts. But maybe the most important step towards the Monobloc was the introduction of a chair that is now considered a classic in design, this is Verner Panton’s single-piece Cantiliver Panton chair (1960) Even as a comparison between the expensive designer chair and the less appreciated garden Monobloc chair may seem strange. The pantheon chair is a technical predecessor as it is the world’s first single-piece plastic chair that went into production in the same molding method seen in today’s Monoblocs. Please Verner Panthon designed the chair in the way that makes it stackable. After the success of Pantheon chair, there were a number of chairs worldwide that were inspired by this production method.
And, with the introduction of a cheaper form of plastic, the path became clearer for the mass production of Monobloc. In 1972, The French designer Henry Massonnet’s Fauteuil 300, but it probably took until 1983 when gross filler launched a Resin Garden Chair but the Monobloc was sold at large quantities at a cheap price.
The chairs produced using injection molding. Here, Poly Propylene granulated are heated to 120 degrees Celsius and injected into a mold that forms the chair. The name Monobloc derived from this method as the end product is made from a single unbroken material. The molds for such products are expensive and cost hundreds and thousands of dollars maybe sometimes millions of dollars. But, the production is greatly scalable and requires little workforce, time, and low material cost. As a result, a single chair in production cost only about 3 dollars and is usually sold for about 10 dollars. Today, there are dozens of Monobloc designs available. Ones with vertical or horizontal slots or without them, with handles or without them. And all sorts of different colours. But, still, you know a Monobloc when you see one.
You could also see the chairs as a result of some kind of market evolution. The chair has evolved with material thicknesses perfectly adjusted so they are thin and inexpensive as possible but still stable and durable. A chair that is weatherproof, stackable, and light. Fundamentally, there is not much you can change about a Monobloc, it words universally around the globe. Maybe it is a perfect design that everything a designer aspires to, but you might still hate it and this is where context comes back to play. How we read a design depends on our knowledge of it and what it reminds us of. Maybe we just don’t value it enough. There white plastic chairs are everywhere, so we might as well start liking them.
Let me know what do you think about these chairs in the comments below.
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