In 2005 I visited LACMA (the Los Angeles County Museum of Art) and to my surprise they have in their permanent exhibition the most awesome chair anyone could ever dreamed of, IF function is not what they are looking for.

In my case, I was struck by the fact I was seeing an actual Gerrit Rietveld’s Red and Blue Chair, the one I had seen in design books as a landmark of the De Stijl artistic movement ( though Rietveld designed it before he was formally associated with De Stijl, and later changed its colors to reflect simplistic color palette and values of De Stijl ) and always thought I would not mind having one at home, the problem is I do not have $900 sitting around to get my own ( Link here ) so that’s why I cheated and made my own virtual one. See it here:

As a graphic designer I can not stop loving the linearity, simplicity and awesome contrast that Rietveld’s Red and Blue Chair presents. I learned, as a matter of fact, that building a real size Red and Blue Chair is an assignment in some architecture schools. This did not really surprise me, knowing the historical and artistic legacy this chair has along with the work of other De Stijl members like Piet Mondrian and others.

After I made my own virtual chair I learned I could own a miniature Red and Blue Chair for $235 from Vitra but the price tag was still a bit much. What really strikes me is that most people would find the sitting feature of this chair to be lacking, but for graphic designers, architects, designers, etc this chair is a piece of art/sculpture where form is its most important feature and function is... well, secondary.