Detroit, Michigan, USA
“I think it speaks to the world we live in today, where anyone with a 3D printer and enough time on their hands could take an icon and make something totally new from it, or something totally new as a whole,” states Benjamin Fainlight, Director, Global Cultural Marketing, StockX LLC.
“Design and fabrication aren’t limited to people with degrees or years of experience in the field and can be democratized for everyone’s involvement.”
Benjamin Fainlight has reinterpreted a new version of the 1950s Easy Chair designed by Pierre Jeanneret with his cousin Le Corbusier, not so much a reinterpretation as a collector’s item, adapting the chair for today’s world now 3D-printed in FFF plastic, Klein blue (IKB) in colour and stackable, the chair has been given a contemporary flavour.
Designer Benjamin Fainlight created a flat-packed, 3D-printed version to demonstrate how seminal furniture designs could be dissected and updated, much like streetwear has been doing with fashion.
Fainlight focused on reworking the Easy Chair, as it was a well-known historic piece that had the potential to be given a modern twist.
“I saw a lot of streetwear designers and brands seeping into the furniture world – Virgil Abloh x IKEA and Vitra, Supreme x Knoll, and so on,” explained Fainlight.
“But they were really just changing colorways, materials or upholstery, and not necessarily reimagining the furniture pieces in the way streetwear tends to subvert and recontextualize references.”
“I wanted to challenge myself to apply a really direct streetwear methodology to furniture and create something totally new instead of just re-skinning something that already existed in some form.”
“I wanted to work with a design that was iconic, had a backstory to its existence and popularity, and most importantly was handcrafted, since my version would be the antithesis of handcraftsmanship,” explained Fainlight.
“The Easy Chair seemed to fit that brief perfectly–its wood fabrication made it easily translatable to plastic, the angularity of the chair made it doable–though not easy–for slicing into flat-pack pieces, and the caned panels for the back and seat gave it a texture and dimension to show what’s feasible with 3D printing.”
The wooden chair with a cane seat was originally designed by Pierre Jeanneret in the 1950s for civil servants working in the city of Chandigarh and developed largely in collaboration with his cousin Le Corbusier.
Pierre Jeanneret worked extensively with his cousin Le Corbusier, whose real name was Charles-Édouard Jeanneret.
At Chandigarh, Pierre Jeanneret master-planned large areas of housing and was given the title chief architect of the city.
He collaborated with Le Corbusier on the design and furnishings of many of the city’s major public buildings including the Capitol Complex.
Fainlight’s numbered edition Easy chair (just ten have been made) is sold with a certificate of authenticity, complete with signature, number and a pair of IKB work gloves to wear when assembling the chair.
It can be bought from the specially set-up website theflatpackjeanneret.com and costs $6,500. An original can cost upwards of $17,000.
Project: Easy Chair
Designers: Benjamin Fainlight
Manufacturer: Benjamin Fainlight
