History of Industrial Design Week 11: Plastics Part 3: Chairs

These videos were made in 2020 as a desperate COVID-era attempt to help keep students engaged in learning as in-person teaching stopped. With no support, no resources, a ridiculous "production schedule," and no idea they would become a sort of permanent record of the time, I just threw them at YouTube. The students mostly didn't watch them, but lots of others did, and that continues to amaze me. I decided to leave them up for anyone who is just curious about design.

NOTE: If you are a current student at Rhode Island School of Design and your professor has sent you here to watch these videos, you should really worry about how much tuition you are paying just to have a teacher sending you to YouTube instead of teaching you themselves. Just saying...

Links:
Panton Chair:
Monobloc Chair:
Bryan Ropar:

[simpernchong]

Very good content for Design History. This channel needs more viewership.

[tortoiseheaven]

I am a Design Teacher and this is the best stuff I have found on the net. Better than patchy dry virtual tours. If I had garnered the energy to make product design lectures this is exactly how i would have wanted them to turn out. Brilliant. Thank you - I now have some great resources for my UK lockdown students to soak up, and am planning to set them a Pecha Kucha (I had never heard of these).

[bthedwards]

"I got the peanuts! I got the peanuts! " LOL. Another brilliant lecture, thank you!

[michaelmccarthy]

This was absolutely brilliant. The dramatic reveal of the Grossfilex chair was heartbreaking! Lol

[brandonbjerre]

VERY Insighful for all aspiring designers in any field. Thank you for making this work public... 👍🏽

[deborahdavis]

I'm getting sad that this is going to be

[lakethursday]

i'm a fanatic for fanback monoblocs. great to hear the history behind them.

[Drdd]

Thanks to Bryan Propar for teaching me about the importance of the Grosfillex chair. I did not expect him to show up here but also am not surprised.

[VV-flfi]

So cute at the end. I’m falling in love🥰

[kelvinahkian]

The plastic chair that is in every household in Southeast asia. :D

[Design.Theory]

Great content. I've subscribed. Thanks for sharing this. Are you a professor at RISD? My brother studied industrial design there, graduating in 2005. I really enjoyed this lecture-style of videos.

[philrivest]

1968 Quebec made avant-garde collection ABS plastic chair designed by Giovanni Maur for Treco?

[keeferhuges]

Cantilevered chairs to me are like jet aircraft; I know they work, but I can't get comfortable trusting the evidence.

[keeferhuges]

You keep saying that the earlier chairs have big buts: I have to wonder how accommodating are even the more modern chairs to our increasingly bigger butts?
k

[pistolannie]

Those plastic chairs.... ARE NOT... As EASY... as u think they are! just ask someone who worked in a factory Making the darn things. It's HARD, FAST Work! And... Each pc has to be trimmed. Not as easy as it sounds!