History of Chair

By re-visiting some of the points that George Marcus has made about functionalism, I realised that there is a clear distinction between functionalism and functionality. I believed if a product was functional from an engineering perspective, the product represented functionalism to me because it meant that the product was designed with effective use of materials, geometry and process.

However, I gained a different perspective from reading this one more time;

Functionalism - “the notion that objects made to be used should be simple, honest, and direct; well adapted to their purpose; bare of ornament; standardized; machine-made, and reasonably priced; and expressive of their structure and materials - has defined the course of progressive design for most of the century.” (George Marcus, Functionalism, 1995, p.9.)

Functionalism is not as simple as describing functionality; not only did the object have to be functional, the object had to allow the user to experience elegance and satisfaction from the essence and the simplicity of the form.

It is interesting to notice that the five chairs that I picked for the timeline still can represent functionalism that Marcus described because all five of them express their simple aesthetics through their structure, use of materials and purpose.