Stories in Form: Chair Design by Portfolio Center
February 5 — June 3, 2012
“The primary focus of a chair is you can sit in it, while its secondary function is to embody a set of aesthetics or values, or to communicate a message or opinion. The secondary function of design is the primary function of art: this is where the two cross over.”
— Angus Hyland, Pentagram
Truly valuable design is a catalyst for life, and therefore, it is culture. Honest exploration and interpretation allows us to arrive at such solutions as the modernist convictions becoming our convictions. It is our responsibility to study, understand, and contribute to these ideas so that we might, in turn, inspire similar thinking down the line, thus creating progression instead of repetition. This creative spirit perpetuates a shared narrative comprised of our best intelligence, feelings, and perceptions that begin to shed light on a world centered around communication and extraordinary problem solving.
The challenge is finding honesty: the core of truth buried within ourselves. As we explore these truths, we come to understand that conflict in our lives is both the cost and the creator of beauty. Curiosity, understanding, amusement, sympathy — these are the threads that weave our stories. The challenge is bringing to live a form that breathes the very emotions that inspired it. Through the intensive process of research, analysis, methodology, exploration, refinement, and production, we look within ourselves and bring forth the chair. The product is neither illusion nor trickery; it is real.
Stories in Form was a 2012 exhibition that showcased chairs designed by students at Portfolio Center. A graduate-level design program, Portfolio Center trains designers in the skills of active design thinking, enabling them to use everyday inspiration to convey meaning and empathy across a variety of mediums. Countless designers have been challenged by one of the school’s most rigorous classes: Modernism, Criticism, and Design History.
As part of this course, students engage in an assignment that challenges their understanding of truth and beauty. Combining elements of modern artistic movements with their own personal narratives, students design a chair. Although a physical artifact, the chair becomes more than a form — it becomes an idea, a perspective, a way of seeing oneself and the world in which one lives. And, as such, it becomes the catalyst for a passionate volition to make the world a better place.
