Product Description
Nigel Coates, Rare, Early and Iconic “Genie” stool 1988
NIGEL COATES (b. 1949) England
BRANSON COATES ARCHITECTURE London
“Genie” stool 1988
Carved and sandblasted solid ash seat on twisted mild steel legs
Marks: NIGEL COATES GENIE STOOL
Illustrated: 1000 chairs, Charlotte & Peter Fiell (Cologne: Taschen Verlag, 1997), p. 615.
H: 26: x D: 13 1/2″
Price: $9,500
British architect and designer. He studied at Nottingham University and the Architectural Association, London, where he graduated in 1974 and subsequently taught until 1989. In 1983 he formed the group NATO (Narrative Architecture Today) with a group of former students and began to practice independently; two years later he went into partnership with Doug Branson (b 1951). Coates became known for his fluid and lively graphic style and the overt theatricality of his designs. His proposals for the redevelopment of London, involving sophisticated allegories of popular culture, were shown in two exhibitions: ArkAlbion (1984), with drawings of new development areas such as County Hall and the Isle of Dogs, and Ecstacity (1992), with computer simulations and video clips. In the renovation (1980) of his own flat in London he juxtaposed the original, ornate late 19th-century interior with ‘found’ furniture and decorative objects. The publication of this project brought Coates to the attention of Japanese clients who were seeking fashionable Western designers, and he carried out several projects in Japan that became increasingly theatrical: in Tokyo the Metropole Restaurant (1985) evokes a European café, while the Parco Café Bongo (1986) juxtaposes classical English furniture with an imitation aeroplane wing mounted on the ceiling; and the Arca di Noè (1988), Sapporo, is an eclectic mixture of classical motifs and a concrete boat. Coates’s radical approach was dissipated in later British works, such as a series of London shops: one for Katharine Hamnett in Sloane Street (1988) has a shop front formed of aquaria, and one for Jigsaw in Knightsbridge (1992) has its shop front formed of a two-storey copper column in the shape of a phallus. In 1992 he began designing an extension to the Geffrye Museum, London.
Coates was an influential teacher at the Architectural Association from 78- 86, and has lectured extensively abroad. In 1995 he was appointed Professor of Architectural Design at the Royal College of Art and now divides his time equally between the college and his office. Nigel Coates furniture is represented in the Modern Furniture Collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.
“I go for architecture that overlays and enhances. By blending observation and wit with reason, I want my work to generate a sense of the unexpected, and the seemingly spontaneous.”
Nigel Coates, Rare, Early and Iconic “Genie” stool 1988
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Andrea Branzi (1938 – ) Zabro, Italy.
“Cucus” chair c.1985
Lacquered wood, tree branches
Illustrated: Domestic Animals: The Neoprimative Style Andrea and Nicoletta Branzi, (London, 1987) n.p.; Designed by Architects in the 1980s, Julie Capella and Quim Larrea, Barcelona, 1987, p. 37; Anne Bony, Paris Les années 80, 1995, p. 520; Charlotte and Peter Fiell, 1000 Chairs, Cologne, 2000, p. 588
H: 42 3/4″ x W: 19 3/4″ x D: 24″
Price: $19,000
The “Cucus” chair was part of the “Domestic Animals” series
designed in 1985/86 by Andrea Branzi for Zabro.
Andrea Branzi's “Domestic Animals” series was designed in 1985 and 1986 for the Italian firm Zabro. Designs were later also manufactured by Zanotta. Andrea Branzi created “Domestic Animals” in collaboration with Nicoletta Branzi, who produced limited edition art clothing for this series. The “Neoprimitive” style in which this collection has been rendered utilizes natural materials such as sticks to create an object that brings archetypal symbols into the home to produce emotional effects. These objects combine technology and nature and the symbols and codes that these entail demonstrating that “a hybrid love between different creatures is possible.” (Branzi, Domestic Animals, 1987, n.p.) With these objects Branzi aims to “domesticate” technological inventions so as to make them a positive presence in man's life.
“The difference between a domestic animal and a trained (or tamed) one lies in the fact that the latter is the outcome of an unnatural and violent attitude, while the domestic animal establishes the dream of a loving relationship with man.” (Branzi, Domestic Animals, 1987, n.p.)
Andrea Branzi, architect and designer, born in Florence in 1938, where he graduated in 1967, lives and works in Milano. From 1964 to 1974 he was a partner of Archizoom Associati, first vanguard group internationally known, whose projects are preserved at Centro Studi e Archivio della Comunicazione in Parma and at Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.
Since 1967 he works in the fields of industrial and research design, architecture, urban planning, education and cultural promotion.He is Professor at the Third Faculty of Architecture and Industrial Design of Politecnico di Milano.
E. A. SEGUY (1890-1985) France
“Papillons” portfolio c. 1925
Twenty pochoir over photogravure plates (hand painted collotypes) in paper portfolio with cotton ties
Pochoir is process by which rich color is applied layer by layer by hand with the aid of stencils, resulting in intense hues similar to those in stained glass windows.
Published by Editions Duchartre et Van Buggenhoudt, Paris, France
Dimensions:
Book: H: 18” x W: 13 1/8” x D: 1 ½”
Custom leather box: H: 20” x W: 14 5/8” x D: 1 ¾”
Brilliantly and boldly colored butterflies from around the world are shown in interesting arrangements in pochoir prints from a set of 20 by the French designer and author E.A. Seguy. Plates 1 to 16 show large specimens in colorful arrangements, often overlapping, emphasizing colors, and patterns and shapes of wings and wing veins. Plates 17 through 20 are composite uses of butterfly patterns, in geometric boxes, like fabric or wallpaper designs.
In his foreword to Papillons, Seguy describes the prints as “un monde somptueux de formes et de couleurs” — a world of sumptuous forms and colors. He explains that they are intended to provide a record of rare, exotic specimens from museums and private collections, within an aesthetic context, thereby making them more widely accessible as inspiration for decorative arts designers. Nonetheless, Seguy based his images of butterflies and insects on illustrations in scientific publications, thereby maintaining scientific accuracy. They were enlarged up to 10 to 15 times to reveal intricacies of their design not visible without magnification. Also included with the set was a Table Des Noms Scientifiques [Table of Scientific Names], providing the technical species and genus names as well as the countries or regions of habitat for the species shown in Plates 1 through 16.
Eugene Alain Seguy produced eleven albums of illustrations and designs from the turn of the century to the 1930s, and his style reflected the influences of both Art Nouveau and Art Deco. His various color portfolios of visual ideas for artists and designers often featured motifs based on the natural world, including flowers, foliage, crystals and animals. Although his compositions were design oriented, he made the depictions scientifically accurate. His later works showed an increased interest in geometric and cubist designs. The prints in the portfolios were produced using the pochoir technique characterized by rich, intense color. This printing process, utilized in the early 20th century for high quality prints, involved applying colors to each plate with a number of stencils. Seguy’s works include Les Fleurs et Leurs Applications Decoratives (1900), Samarkande – 20 Compositions en Couleurs dans le Style Oriental (1914), Floreal (1920), Papillons (1924), Insectes (1924), Primavera –Dessins et Coloris Nouveaux (1929), Suggestions (1930), and Prismes – 40 Planches de Dessins et Coloris Nouveaux (1931).
Collections of prints like those produced by Seguy provided source material for designers of fabrics, wallpaper, ceramics, book illustrations, posters, and advertisements, and were popular in the late 19th and early 20th century. The leading Victorian publication of this type was Owen Jones’s Grammar of Ornament, first issued in a folio edition in London in 1856. Other trendsetting styles in art, design, decoration and fashion in the second half of the 19th century, and early 20th century, came from Paris, Austria, and Germany, and many such print collections were published there, including designs by Emile Belet, Armand Guérinet, Ernst Haeckel, Arsène Herbinier, and Anton Seder. To search our site for more Art Nouveau designs by such artists please type “Art Nouveau” into our search engine.
Editions Duchartre et Van Buggenhoudt was a publisher located at 15 Rue Ernest-Cresson, Paris. The series also was published by Tolmer Editeur, 13 Quai d’Danjou, Paris.
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