Shiro Kuramata, one of Japan’s most prominent designers, explored the possibilities for furniture design presented by unusual new materials such as Plexiglas and rib mesh. He traced the expressive capacity of these materials, and, by tapping the psychological effect they could have, created objects that straddled the borderline between function and suggestion. In the chair entitled How High The Moon, named after a jazz piece by Duke Ellington, the gleaming, dematerialized surface evokes pale moonlight and weightlessness. Kuramata has reduced the back, armrests, and seat to simple, cubic forms and soldered them together to form a surprisingly lightweight chair. The generous proportions and the elasticity of the rib mesh guarantee the necessary sitting comfort. A weighty symbol of bourgeois life was translated into the idiom of Postmodern industrial aesthetics, and transposed from the living-room into the universe.
Text: Vitra Design Museum
