Comfy chairs, ergonomic chairs, posture correcting chairs, all well and
good – but like everyone, designers sometimes like to bend the rules and
be bad, oh so bad! These 13 uncomfortable chairs show that even the
best furniture designers take (and give) pains to stretch the limits of their art.
The Pencil Chair: Get The Point?
(images via: Design Boom and Techeblog)
You could say German artist Kerstin Schulz might not be the sharpest
pencil in the box, but that’s understandable as she’s worn out every
sharpener within reach to create a suite of furniture only a lovesick porcupine could love. Just looking at her graphic
graphite Pencil Chair is giving me lead poisoning… and don’t even ask
what she did with all the shavings. Schulz was commissioned to craft
something special for Faber Castell’s 100th anniversary exhibition in 2005; we can bet she’s looking forward to doing something similar for Bic.
The Concrete Chair: Heavyset Seat
Here’s the perfect chair to have when you need a friend to help you
move… and you happen to really hate your friend. Stefan Zwicky’s 1980
homage to the classic 1929 Le Corbusier Petite Chair has little to
recommend it besides rock-solid durability – and one ton of mass.
Comfort zone? More like Twilight Zone. Plunk this concrete chair in the middle of the Sahara Desert at high noon and it’ll STILL be cold & clammy.
The Panda Chair: For Your Bear Bum
(images via: Geekologie and Moss Online)
The Banquete Chair with Pandas
by Fernando and Humberto Campana is said to be a limited edition – no
surprise, there aren’t that many pandas left after all. Especially after
the Brothers Campana cobbled together 25 of these somewhat disturbing
chairs. OK, they’re not made of REAL pandas but they’re still
uncomfortable, at least to look at. Actually sitting on the Banquette
Chair is probably extremely soothing for your body, just not for your
soul.
The Stick Chair: It’s The Wood That Makes It Bad
(images via: Core77 and Scandinavian Design Online)
The Stick Chair comes to us courtesy of Carlo Volf of Danish design firm Volfdesign,
though from the looks of it “courtesy” isn’t one of Volf’s better
qualities. It’s doubtful he has a soft spot for comfort either, since
YOUR soft spot will never forgive you for sitting in this chair.
Designed for the 2005 Carpenter’s Autumn Exhibition, “Stick”, as Volf calls it, will definitely stick it to you… where the sun don’t shine.
The Cheese Chair: What’s That Smell?
(images via: InventorSpot and Cosimo Cavallaro)
Like a little Limburger with your La-Z-Boy? Maybe a lot? Step right up and sit right down. Cosimo Cavallaro’s Cheese Chair
is either cool, or it stinks. Literally. When you design a chair
covered in cheese there just isn’t any room for compromise. Compro-mice,
maybe, but I digress. The 1999 curvaceous curd-aceous cheesy chair is
just one example of Cavallaro’s specialty, food art. Looking to visit
the artist’s studio? Book a flight to Montreal, Quebec, and follow your
nose.
Anti-Homeless Benches: Sit, Now Git!
(image via: Oh My News)
Cities around the world have begun to make public seating uncomfortable – by design!
The intent is not to annoy visitors to parks, trains stations and so
on, but to discourage those who habitually use such seating for much
longer than the usual few minutes. Take the fiendishly artistic bench
above, located in Tokyo’s Ikebukuro West Park. Built from stainless
steel, the bench gets hot in summer and cold in winter. Its rounded,
smooth surface is slippery and anti-ergonomic. According to the local
parks office, the benches are intended for short-term use and “people should take the utmost care when sitting on them.”
The Radiator Chair: Steam Heat Seat
(images via: Design Lines and Stylenorth)
“Made from 80 year old radiators, this chair is surprisingly comfortable.” That just may be the case, since the Radiator Chair looks unsurprisingly UNcomfortable. It also looks somewhat out of place among the traditionally styled offerings at the Barrymore Furniture Galleries
in Toronto… until you glance at the $1,430 written on the price tag.
The Radiator Chair comes with an optional companion piece: a $1,200 end
table that sports a red valve handle on one front leg. Don’t turn it,
whatever you do!
Cactus Couch: Me So Thorny!
(images via: Dark Roasted Blend and China Chair Project)
Not just merely uncomfortable, it’s Sofa King uncomfortable! Looking
like a gag gift for Wile E. Coyote, the “Ouch Couch” is (thankfully) not
real, but a processed graphic image. The diabolic divan starred in a series of ads for Sony’s AXN
pay television, cable and satellite television channel in conjunction
with the tag line “Relax. If you can”. Just below the ultimate
tough-love seat is a hand-molded silicone chair & footstool combo
modeled after a prickly pear – and what a prickly pair they are! It was
featured at the China Chair Project art exhibit and is the work of artist (and sadist, obviously) Xiang Yun.
The Clutch Chair: Sip Right Down
(images via: Scott Jarvie)
The Clutch Chair by Scott Jarvie
was made out of 10,000 plastic drinking straws as a commentary on our
throwaway disposable culture and was selected by Zaha Hadid as for the
Curators Choice award at Noise Festival
2008. A winning design, thus, but a loser when it comes to practical,
comfortable seating. On a positive note, at least The Clutch Chair is
well-ventilated though if comfort was a concern, the designers should
have used 10,000 bendy straws
The Steel Bean Bag Chair: Heavy Metal Wonder
(images via: Bedzine and The Design Blog)
Rick Ivey’s “1825″ steel beanbag chair
displays the rough-edged, riveted look of an Industrial Revolution
boilerplate steam engine – just the thing you DON’T want to sink into at
the end of a hard day’s night. The $4,500 price tag, however, WILL make
you weak at the knees.
The Venus Chair: Sitting On The Edge
Going green, getting back to nature, growing your own… it all sounds comfy & cozy, doesn’t it? Well, not always – as the Venus Chair
by Japanese designer Tokujin Yoshioka illustrates. Grown in a tank
filled with a supersaturated solution, the Venus Chair slowly takes
shape as tiny crystals precipitate out of the solution and onto a
prepared chair form. Tiny SHARP-EDGED crystals, growing bigger, sharper,
pointier by the minute. Just the thing you’d like to plop down on –
which is perhaps the reason the Venus Chair is in the running for this
year’s Brit Insurance Furniture Award. No dummies, those guys.
The Skeleton Chair: Bad To The Bone
(images via: Michael Aram and Neiman Marcus)
Commenting on his polished aluminum and steel Skeleton Chair, designer Michael Aram states “The
shape of the human body is a great source of inspiration. Stripped of
its skin, it becomes an arresting and unexpected natural form.”
Sure Mikey, but this arresting and unexpected chair is the last thing
most people would look to when they need to take a load off their feet.
If “adding drama to your living space” is your thing, however, prepare to bone up $650 for the privilege.
The Electric Chair: The Original Hot Seat
(images via: Roadside America and Biogant)
To close this baker’s dozen of deceitful seats, we present the most infernal piece of furniture ever created, built for speed and not for comfort: the Electric Chair. Though many replicas of Ol’ Sparky
and others of its ilk now cool their heels in various state prison
museums scattered across the US of A, there doesn’t seem to be a “home
version” available for horror freaks & geeks to set up in their rec
rooms.
