One of the best weeks for chairs in eons
Observer 107: The Seat of Power
Hello—one of the better weeks this year for chairs if you’re looking to make an investment or try out something new—dozens and dozens of chair auctions below. But first,
Housekeeping:
In new Dwell column I wrote about how old designs—be they out of print chairs or lamps etc. from designer estates, or sketches that were not put into production before, or covetable/high-hammer collector’s items—get released to market these days. Spoke to MillerKnoll’s archival operations (led by the great Amy Auscherman), Eames Office (Demetrios Eames himself) and Form Portfolios (fascinating company). I enjoyed talking to everyone, was super neat to peek into the logistics of furniture production. Much those of us on the outside of the industry don’t know! Story is here, thank you for reading.
Design Space is in LA this weekend in West Hollywood… it’s a popup shop for lack of better word being run/done by Basic Space, lots of sellers… expansive list of exhibitors and it’s in W. Hollywood at somewhere secret—requires an RSVP—and most interesting to me is that the group somehow found 500 deadstock Ettore Sottsass phones and are selling them (with the booklet and everything) to customers. A nice pull, reminds me of when Ryan Richardson found got all those Pay to Cum booklets from Earl Hudson a few years ago and was selling them for $1,000… that was an unbelievable couple of days. Info on the DS exhibitors and RSVP can be found here.
Ferrari—what is there to say?
Price results from this past week
Last week’s email was a deep dive on designers Afra & Tobia Scarpa and linked to the following auctions of their furniture (with prices these items sold for in parentheses):
Scarpa Coronado sofa ($750); Soriana sofa ($5,000—fair); four Dialogo chairs (€1,600—perverse), Copricorno lamp (€550 huge steal), Basilian sofa €1100 as well as a half dozen other Scarpa auctions at the same price range not yet ended, found here:
This letter also included a couple dozen auctions of other designers, including:
A Zanotta OTTAWA sofa for $1,800 (Ottawa is the only important city on the planet); this set of van der Rohe MR20 chairs for the same; pair of Breuer B55s and a beautiful glass table for a couple thou.
Perriand for Cassina LC8 stool $250, three Cesca chairs for $225, a Cini Boeri for Knoll Lunario table for $325 (this one was local to NYC), Kartell trash can (Cortesi & Scansetti) $125, a Sonneman Torchiere floor lamp for $125, this Sonneman Sottsass-style accountant lamp for $40.
Obs 108
One of the best weeks for chairs I’ve seen this year. Chairs are the ultimate first item to buy when outfitting a home, because they can vary… one can get a workmanlike canon design chair that is plain and grow to love it… one can go out of pocket and get something that doesn’t work or match with anything and then the room will… rally around that. In a sense this works because chairs themselves, when solo, when there is just one of them, are pure objet… works of art or statements as much as they are practical things to sit on… I don’t want to get too intellectual about it; this is a split second calculation that consumers make, I think. Plus there’s an IG account that purports as much. And they’re portable. Anyways, 15-plus chairs below ending this and next week, a dozen more next month, whichrun the continuum of theoretical to practical/plain, Italian to non-
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to SNAKE to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.