Embed Code:

Don Chadwick
Founder/Principal
Chadwick Studio

SESSION DESCRIPTION

Immortality through Product

Not all designers set out to achieve the Platonic ideal in a concept for a chair, but few would argue that the promise of synonymy with a beloved design object does not motivate their process. This session will explore the generation of design from concept to production and asks the question: can design immortalize? We will hear from designers, patrons, and manufacturers who are involved in the generation of and dispersal of product to investigate the importance of design and its longevity in the face of subjective tastes and obsolescence.

SPEAKER BIO

A native of Southern California, Don Chadwick received his principal training in design at the University of California, Los Angeles, graduating in 1959. He then worked for architect Victor Gruen before establishing his own practice in 1964. In 1974, Chadwick designed Chadwick Modular Seating.

In collaboration with William Stumpf he designed the Equa 1 flexing-plastic chair (1984). Then in 1994, the landmark Aeron chair catapulted Chadwick to national attention; the Industrial Designers Society of America and Business Week Magazine awarded Design of the Decade to the Aeron chair in 1999.

Chadwick has received numerous awards over the past three and a half decades while pioneering the use of modern materials, molding processes and mechanisms leading to cutting-edge products that have raised the standard for their market.

‘As a hands-on person, I have always been intrigued with the variety of materials and their respective properties and process capabilities. In my earlier formative years the work of Michael Thonet, The Bauhas, Alvar Aalto and of course the plywood and fiberglass experiments of Charles and Ray Eames had a profound influence on my approach to materials and their integral part of the process of design.’

Chadwick has lectured at UCLA and the Art Center College of Design, Pasadena.