Born in Brooklyn New York in 1920, Norman Cherner’s designs are part of the iconography of mid-20th Century furniture design. He is recognised as one of the most original of a generation of designers that explored post-war technological innovations in architecture and industrial design. He studied and taught at the Columbia University Fine Arts department and was an instructor at the Museum of Modern Art in New York from 1947-1949. Cherner’s training in the Bauhaus tradition led to a lifelong exploration informed by the belief that all design stems from one discipline. His chairs, tables and case goods have shown an enduring popularity since their introduction nearly fifty years ago. The moulded plywood Cherner Chair, designed for Plycraft in 1958, has become an icon of mid-twentieth century design and can be found in galleries and design collections worldwide, including the Vitra Museum.

Housing was in enormous demand in the US during the Postwar era, with the GI Bill, the baby boom and the surge of postwar prosperity. Cherner was determined to make affordable design a reality. He created a prototype for prefabricated housing that, although it was not commercially successful, he transported to Connecticut and used as his own home and studio in the late 1950s. He published books on the subject of affordable design throughout the 1950s, including, Make Your Own Modern Furniture (1953), How to Build a House for Less than $6000 (1957), and Fabricating Houses from Component Parts (1958).

But it was the plywood chair that Cherner is best known for, and the story of its creation is fascinating.

The Cherner Chair Company, founded by Norman Cherner’s sons Benjamin and Thomas in 1999, is the sole authorized licensor of Cherner’s designs, and they work off of his original drawings and specifications. The company produces Cherner’s original armchair, side chair, barstool and counter stool, as well as his other designs.

This timeless design deserves deepest bow and all honor – Christine Leja

INSPIRED BY JOSEPH DIRAND

Specially after an inspiring time in Paris at the Maison & Object and chiefly an impressive stay in the family house of JOSEPH DIRAND, I feel that my head is round to change ideas and my openness to new inspirations allows me, to see “old fashioned” materials in a new perspective. I am inspired, I am fascinated and I am re-planning…

Joseph Dirand, the son of Jacques Dirand, arguably the most famous interiors photographer of his day, and now himself one of fashion’s most heavily sought-after architects, Dirand has built a career on incorporating a quintessentially French style of design into otherwise minimalist interiors.

JOSEPH DIRAND DESIGNS EATERY MONSIEUR BLEU AT PARIS’S PALAIS DE TOKYO

He settled on a design that is elegant and a little bit louche. “I don’t care about style anymore, in a way I hate style, I hate design,” he says. “It’s about life, and generosity.”

Dominated by black and white, this taut architecture likes to contrast scales and eras and reveals a sense for an innate nature to a given setting. A graduate of the Paris/Belleville school of architecture, he cultivates the stylistic stamp that fits his very personal sense of elegance. It is a jarring setting in which to find Dirand, one of the most sought-after architects and interior designers in fashion and the creative mastermind behind the brand-new Givenchy store in Paris, Rick Owens’ Mayfair boutique as well as Alexander Wang’s Beijing outpost. He has also designed luxury hotels in Mexico and the Monsieur Bleu restaurant at Paris’ Palais de Tokyo, which mixes the elegance of early Viennese modernism with electrifying jolts of various provenance: a shade of green here, an unexpected lamp there and exquisite Lalique glass wall panels throughout.

Dirand’s style is almost instantly recognizable, characterized by strong lines, impeccable proportions, and breathtaking precision. “The way he treats and defines space is very clean,” says Mahdavi. “He’s created a language of his own by reinventing traditional French decorative elements in a contemporary way.” Kalt agrees, saying, “It’s the meeting of classicism and minimalism. There’s both a Cistercian touch and great elegance.” And as Gilles Malafosse, owner of Monsieur Bleu, points out, “One of the main characteristics of his work is the absence of anything superfluous.”