He invented a midcentury modern chair that defies space 鈥� and time
Is it possible to design a revolutionary new chair? David Rowland did. You鈥檝e most likely sat on it.聽
The industrial designer鈥檚 signature chair, the 40/4, is the world鈥檚 first compactly stackable chair. You can stack 40 of them at a height of just 4 feet. Singly, they can fill a room. Then they can be packed up into a tiny storage space.聽
Rowland鈥檚 chair debuted in 1964. That year, it won the grand prize at the Triennale di Milano, the annual exhibition mecca for art and design. Since then, the 40/4 has become part of many permanent collections, including at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Mus茅e D鈥橭rsay in Paris. But it鈥檚 no museum piece. Many examples of midcentury modern furniture now look very much 鈥渙f their time.鈥� By contrast, the 40/4 seems timeless. It looks equally at home inside a modern office or at the ancient edifice of St. Paul鈥檚 Cathedral in London.聽
Why We Wrote This
A story focused onA good idea can take years to come to fruition. A midcentury modern designer found that persistence and continual refinement were needed to move his creation from concept to reality.
Rowland said the 40/4 fulfilled his goal to 鈥渃reate the most universal chair ever built with the least expenditure of materials and labor.鈥�
The design book 鈥淒avid Rowland: 40/4 Chair鈥� chronicles the creative, logistical, and institutional challenges that the midcentury modern designer faced to make his idea a reality. It鈥檚 a story of tenacity. More than that, it鈥檚 a manifesto for the creative principles Rowland espoused. He was an advocate for sustainability long before the concept became popular. The designer railed against mass-produced products if they weren鈥檛 鈥渕eaningfully necessary.鈥� He also called for purposeful design aimed at solving the world鈥檚 problems.
As Rowland once put it, 鈥渢he different is seldom better, but the better is always different.鈥�
Those words are also an apt description for the man who said them. This beautifully illustrated monograph, eloquently co-written by Rowland鈥檚 widow, Erwin, and journalist Laura Schenone, is a detailed portrait of the nonconformist entrepreneur.聽
During his lifetime, Rowland designed everything from ahead-of-their-time houses made out of shipping containers to a safety ashtray. (A devout 海角大神 Scientist, Rowland didn鈥檛 smoke.) While studying for his Master of Fine Arts in design at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan, he submitted a drawing of a vehicle to the Packard Motor Car Co. It included a gas cap hidden beneath the license plate. When the company implemented that idea without acknowledging Rowland鈥檚 blueprint, let alone paying him, he wasn鈥檛 resentful. 鈥淭here are more ideas where that one came from,鈥� he said.聽
Whenever Rowland picked up his draftsman鈥檚 pen, he prayed for ideas. As a 21-year-old pilot of a B-17 during World War II, he鈥檇 credited prayer for a safe landing after enemy fire crippled two of the bomber鈥檚 engines. A few years later, Rowland turned to God during a low point. For years, the freelance designer had been visiting legendary furniture designer Florence Knoll to show her prototype chairs he鈥檇 created. She kept turning down his pitches. The thought came to him, 鈥淲hy don鈥檛 you see how many chairs you can get into the smallest space?鈥澛�
Instead of trying to appeal to Knoll鈥檚 taste, he aimed to redefine the chair so as to fulfill a need. Rowland first learned the importance of purposeful creation back in 1940. Then a high school student, he鈥檇 received special permission to enroll in a college summer course taught by聽L谩szl贸 Moholy-Nagy. The Hungarian was a key figure in Germany鈥檚 Bauhaus school of design. (The book includes delightful accounts of Rowland鈥檚 encounters with many other 20th-century art and design luminaries, including Charles Eames, Buckminster Fuller, and Norman Rockwell.) Like other Bauhaus exiles who鈥檇 fled Nazi Germany, Moholy-Nagy exported the school鈥檚 philosophy to America.
鈥淏auhaus teachers saw the threat of dehumanization in the rapid rise of industrialism,鈥� the authors write. 鈥淭hey advocated for human creativity and imagination and wanted to educate artists across creative disciplines to work with industry to create a better world.鈥�
Those principles were a sharp break from trends of the time. According to the authors, eminent industrial designers such as Raymond Loewy often focused primarily on aesthetic appeal. They wanted products to stand out on the shelf. Why own a steam iron that resembles a warmed-up horseshoe when you could own one that emulates the futuristic sleekness of a spaceship? Rowland opposed style for its own sake. In a 1968 speech titled 鈥淭he Moral Basis of Design,鈥� delivered to 3,000 people at a Smithsonian exhibition about the history of chairs, he explained that beauty emerges organically from a design that fulfills its purpose.
Rowland鈥檚 chair features elegant curves. But to shape the seat, he had to overcome numerous challenges. Usually, the only way to stack any item is for each consecutive unit to be slightly larger than its predecessor. The marvel of the 40/4 is that each chair is the same size and proportion. Yet they slot together. It appears to defy the logical limits of spatial dimension. Both the seat and the back are set within the frames, rather than on top of them, so that they don鈥檛 bulge outward and create bulk when piled atop each other.
When Rowland presented his latest chair to Knoll, he said nothing about what made it a breakthrough product. Instead, he had her sit on two prototypes stacked on top of one another. They were so slim that they appeared to be a single chair. Then he revealed that she鈥檇 actually been sitting on two stackable chairs. Ms. Knoll鈥檚 reaction was immediate: 鈥淲e鈥檒l take it.鈥澛�
They didn鈥檛. Without explanation, Knoll Associates prematurely canceled a contract for the 40/4. Other furniture companies, including Herman Miller, couldn鈥檛 see a use for it, either.聽
鈥淚t takes time for consumers to catch up and embrace what is different, because it is unfamiliar,鈥� the authors write.
Rowland spent years in the wilderness trying to bring his invention to the market. Eventually, he learned through an architectural firm that the University of Illinois needing 17,000 chairs for new campus buildings. The architects loved his design, and connected him with the General Fireproofing Company, a manufacturer of school and office furniture. General Fireproofing had the capacity to manufacture the 40/4 chair at scale. 聽
Rowland鈥檚 masterpiece has since sold in the millions. Yet he isn鈥檛 as well known today as some of his midcentury modern peers. Perhaps it鈥檚 because he ultimately had to work outside of an established system of design and furniture institutions.聽
鈥淒avid Rowland: 40/4 Chair鈥� may help boost his name recognition. It also reminds contemporary designers of timeless principles that serve as a valuable North Star.
