During furniture history of China, there are lots of different kind of chair. Most of them are made by wood. They contain thousands of years of sediment, and in the course of the changing of the dynasties they show their strange characteristics, emitting the light of a pearl from the sea.
The Wishbone Chair designed by Hans J. Wegener for Carl Hansen,1949
For this Chair, Hans J. Wegner was inspired by a portrait of Danish travelers seated on a Chinese chair from the Ming Dynasty. The Y-shaped chair is simple, light and attractive, but at the same time exceptionally strong and logical, with a comfortable single chair and a Y-supported back panel as its highlight.The design is also referred to as the Wishbone Chair because the Y-shaped support that connects the seat with the curved arm and back rest resembles a wishbone.
The shape and lines of the chair come from the Chinese Ming chair – the circle chair – with a semi-circular back and armrests, a back panel that conforms to the curve of the body’s back, and four tube-footed door posts that hold the legs and feet together.
The Ch24 wishbone chair is available in natural ash wood, walnut wood, black wood and white wood. Many other colors are available on request. The Natural wood Wishbone chair is made of high-quality ash wood. The wood is stained and protected with a high-quality mat transparent protection, given the wood a very natural aspect. The chair’s production involves over 100 different steps, including the hand-weaving of the seat from more than 120 metres of paper cord.
But most of all I wanted to discuss the circle chair, which is a combination of the square chair and the tai master chair.
To this day, it is still a must-have in restaurants, cafes and private homes around the world, and it perfectly interprets what is called a “classic”.
The circle chair originated in the Tang Dynasty, the most obvious feature of the circle chair is the circle back attached to the armrests, from high to low a smooth and down, when people sit arms are leaning on the circle-shaped armrests, very comfortable, the shape is also very graceful.The shape of the circle chair is rounded at the top and squared bottom, round on the outside and square on the inside. The darkness is in keeping with the traditional Chinese culture of the universe, where the sky is round and the earth is square. Outside round and inside square is also a virtue held in high esteem in traditional Chinese culture.
Image from GuJian China
https://news.gujianchina.cn/show-4218.html
Ancient Ming chairs uphold the rustic style of their ancestors, pursuing the simplicity of nature itself, without decoration, paying attention to the beauty of the material, making full use of the wood itself and the texture of the unadorned, using the nature of the texture of the unique material beauty, to show the furniture wood itself and the natural rustic features.
The Arminian lap chairs focus on linear changes, forming a contrast between straight lines and curves, between square and round, between horizontal and straight, and have a strong form of beauty.
The sagacious chairs are constructed with great attention to aesthetics and, wherever possible, without nails and glue, because they are resistant to moisture without glue and to rust without nails, mainly using mortise and tenon construction.
Top view Detail
Y-shaped chair is a true iconic chair in the world of design, the Ch24 Wishbone chair has been a real commercial success, partly contributing to Denmark’s position as a world leader in design.The wooden Wishbone chair inspired by Hans Wegner has even been called by experts in the field: the most beautiful design chair of its time.
Because my client very like Chinese traditional arts, and the Y-shaped chair’s removes the redundant parts of the chair, extracting the graceful lines and structure of the chair so that it is instantly recognisable as a Chinese chair, but changes the heavy, stately design to make it more flexible and minimalist, more adaptable to modern design.
References:
·Xu Min, Liu Yalan. Aesthetic value of Ming-style circle chair furniture[J]. Art Technology, 2017(02): https://wenku.baidu.com/view/dd32f86b4b7302768e9951e79b89680202d86b7a.html
·Jin Cao Lin. A study of the simplicity of Ming furniture and Scandinavian furniture design
·The Circle Chair – a charming classic of transcendent furniture in the Ming and Qing dynasties-Source from the web