To paraphrase Gertrude Stein, a chair is a chair is a chair… and to paraphrase George Orwell,  some chairs are more chair-like than others. No other piece of furniture is more redolent of the human body (although our pet animals – cats and dogs – are also fond of sitting on them). Beds, too, evoke people, but their horizontality brings a whiff of death. Chairs are for the living (although Norman Bates, in Hitchcock’s Psycho, installed his dead, mummified mother on a rocking chair). Chairs, like people, have arms and legs, even shoulders and a back. You move them around, as you do with people. An empty chair is not a mere object; it is also testifies to an absence. A chair, unoccupied, seems to be sad, which is why photographers have been so keen to capture tenantless chairs on film. A jilted lover like Jean Harris (murderer of Dr Tarnower, inventor of the Scarsdale diet) could say that she felt like an “empty chair”.

Jorge Calado
in The Glass Chair

Manuel Heitor is Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering of the   Instituto Superior Tecnico, Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal. Founder and current Director of the IST’s “Center for Innovation, Technology and Policy Research”.  

José Duarte is lecturer at the Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture of the Instituto Superior Tecnico, Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal.

 William Mitchell  is Professor of Architecture and Media Arts and Sciences and Dean of the School of Architecture and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA. He also serves as Architectural Adviser to the President of MIT.

INFORMAÇÕES 

FORMATO: 225 X 225 mm

PÁGS.: 138

ISBN: 978-972-8469-15-3 

ANO: 2001

PVP: € 24,73 ( 6% IVA incluído)

FORA DE COLECÇÃO: Design, Arquitectura, Urbanismo

NOTA: Em Inglês

PREFACE Jorge Calado

FOREWORD William Mitchel

AS AN INTRODUCTION Creating a New Chair, But Why? Manuel Heitor

IN RETROSPECT:"Ad Ephemeram Gloriam..." SAM

OTHER CHAIRS António Sena da Silva - Daciano da Costa - Pedro Silva Dias - Leonor Sena - António Faria - José Russel and Luísa Coder - Carmo Valente

GLASS: Beauty With Strength - Sushil Kumar Mendirata

THE IDEA Creating  The Glass Chair Gabi Celani, Ian Ferguson, Brett Stilwell     Beyond The Glass Chair João Rocha

THE PROCESS: Collaborative Design and Construction of The Glass Chair João Bento, José Duarte, Fernando Esperança, Manuel Heitor and Jorge Rocha

EXPANDING HORIZONS... Architectural Education: The Role of Design Teaching Teresa Heitor     

  A Manifesto  for Engineering Renewal Pedro Conceição and Manuel Heitor

COMPRAR CATÁLOGO INÍCIO