Robin Day (designer)
Robin Day ( born May 25, 1915 in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire; † 9 November 2010) was an English designer. With his designs he was style icon for the UK and beyond. He became famous for his stackable chairs made of polypropylene, of which around 14 million copies were sold.
Life and work
The beginnings
Robin Days birthplace High Wycombe was a center of the furniture industry. The place was full of carpenter and furniture shops. In 1931 he began his training at the 1931 High Wycombe School of Art Subsequently, he worked as a draftsman in the furniture manufacturing. He gained valuable insights about the processes and on the Functioning of the technicians in production.
In 1934 he won a scholarship at the Royal College of Art in London. The design courses were not geared towards industrial design and disappointing for him, in his professional practice already had deepened busy. However, he had at college the freedom and used it to perfect his drawing skills to study technical publications and experience in exhibitions, the European and American avant-garde.
When he graduated from college in 1938, there were hardly any vacancies in the furniture industry. Despite his talent, he could not find employment. Therefore, he first made models for architects. When war broke out he was retired from military service because of his asthma. He found a job as a lecturer at the Beckenham School of Art, where he developed an innovative course on three-dimensional design.
Lucienne and Robin Day
In 1940 he met on a dance event at the Royal College of Art, Lucienne Conradi know, then a student in the Department of Textile. Two years later they married each other - the beginning of a lifelong partnership. Both reached the highest reputation in their field of expertise; Lucienne Day textile design, Robin in furniture design. Unlike, for example, Charles and Ray Eames not working on common workpieces. However, they encouraged each other's work through suggestions and discussions. Characteristic external characteristic of their collaboration were their back -to-back drawing boards established.
1954, the daughter Paula was born. Lucienne Day died in January 2010.
Breakthrough to fame
1948 Robin won jointly with Clive Latimer the first prize for cabinet furniture at an international competition of the Museum of Modern Art ( MoMA) in New York. One of the judges was Mies van der Rohe. The price was the breakthrough to international notoriety for Robin Day. Even the couple Leslie and Rosa Mind Julius, owner of the furniture company Hille, were aware of him. Both just sent itself to consistently convert the program of their company to modernity. In 1949 she won him to work as a designer for Hille. The collaboration had more than twenty years of existence.
Robin Day had close connections maintained by the United States. Charles Eames also had a price, even if "only" a second, won on the same MoMA competition. The influence of Eames is clearly at the trough chairs made of plywood, the Day for Hille in 1950 designed. The laminated form took advantage of the potential of synthetic adhesives then newly developed. The most commercially successful model was the Hillestak, a light stackable wooden chair that was manufactured in large quantities for schools, canteens and lecture halls. In the department store Liberty's a copy cost 66 shillings.
At the Festival of Britain in 1951 were encountered throughout Hilles plywood seats. The rooms of the home - and - garden pavilions were equipped with a dining table version, with tiltable arm rests and steel legs. The pavilion itself was designed by Robin - and the textile equipment Calyx came from his wife, Lucienne.
At the same time Robin Day had the task of designing a chair with armrests for the new Festival Hall. It was made of plywood with rosewood veneer. Robin Days style came to meet the expectations of his time, he was recognizable modern without being effusive. Robin Day and his designed furniture for Hille It is thanks to an extent that British design attracted international attention. He was invited to design a section of the Triennale in Milan. Its interior design won the gold medal in this year.
The 1950s and 1960s
In the 1950 television found its way into many British households. Robin Days TV that he designed for the company Pye, won a Design Award of the Council of Industrial Design. He also designed armchair, where narrow trays for snacks replacing armrests.
However, he was not limited to furniture design. Impressed by Scandinavian design that represented the claim that a designer should influence all details of daily life, he also worked as a graphic designer, a space designer and as a product designer. Even in times of war he had designed posters for the Ministry of Information. He designed the typeface design for the exhibition grounds of the Festival of Britain.
For Hille, he designed the logo and the company publication, as well as the layout of business letters and the appearance of the label for buildings, rooms and vehicles. This work on the uniform appearance, now widely familiar as corporate identity, was then a pioneering achievement. The interior of the exhibition house of Hille, built in 1962 by Peter Moro in spectacular architecture, was also designed by Robin Day.
Finally, in the 1960s he designed the chair, who was to become his emblem. The first proposal had a hollow chair made of fiberglass - reinforced plastic. Robin Day was reluctant, however, easy to create a variant of the successful fiberglass, Charles Eames had designed and had acquired the license to sell the United Kingdom for the Hille. Robin's research on the material polypropylene, the Nobel Prize winner Giulio Natta had invented in 1954 convinced him that this was the ideal raw material for the really cheap chair for mass production: ideal for injection molding production, and durable for daily use. The seat shell of the Hille - chair could be stacked in simple frames and placed on different substructures, be it on a four-legged chair seat substructure, a barstool construction or fixed substructures in halls, stadiums and restaurants.
Hille invested £ 6,000 in production machinery. From the first batch, the company sent 6,000 copies free of charge to architects, designers and critics. The chair was a sensational success; after a short time made him the world around 50 companies under license. A reduced, particularly robust version has been produced for schools.
A large number of venues has been equipped in the 1960s with this chair: the new Nottingham Playhouse, the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford- upon- Avon, the five lecture halls at the Barbican Centre and finally the 38,000 seats in the Olympic Stadium in Mexico City.
Also the interior of the aircraft of the BOAC -designed Robin Day in the 1960s.
The two Days were now become stars. Constantly published articles about them in publications for the home and design; they were sought-after interviewees and had advertising contracts. In advertisements the company Smirnoff they were portrayed as glamorous couple. Robin Day designed in the 1970s the interiors for the department store chain John Lewis in Brent Cross and 1981 for Waitrose in Finchley Road in London.
Difficult times
In the 1980s came a difficult time. Hille was in financial difficulties. Other designers were recruited. The collaboration with Hille ended when the company was sold in 1983. Modernity became a mass taste, designs based on the great designers of the 1950s and 1960s were produced en masse. The once exciting and original modernity was, degenerated in Days own words to mediocrity.
Renewed appreciation
In the 1990s, the appreciation for the original grew back. Original furniture from his designs from the 1950s and 1960s achieved high sales prices. 1991 the exhibition design in the 50s place in the Manchester City Art Galleries. Some of his old designs were again produced by British and Italian companies. New designs have been added, such as the 1990 chair designed Toro formed steel, are equipped with the London Underground trains. A major exhibition of his and his wife Lucienne's work was held in 2001 at the Barbican Centre.