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| Rob describes the Mackintosh Hill House chair as “the one that started it all.” As of press time, the Josef Hoffmann Fledermaus chair he’s leaning on was his most recent acquisition. |
Deep Seated
PaperCity editor Rob Brinkley has a thing for chairs.
D Home: So, Rob, why chairs?
RB: I know, I know—stamps would’ve been a lot easier. But a chair shows you an architect’s way of solving problems as well as how he or she feels about materials and about the joining together of different materials. I love modern architecture. I love great design. So in one fairly small object, I get to follow a thought process, a certain line of thinking. And when the result is beautiful, too, or has a certain personality—well, there you go. These chairs are functional sculpture. Besides, I can’t squeeze a bunch of great buildings into my apartment.
D Home: Which brings up the actual state of your apartment. It’s a one-bedroom, correct?
RB: Correct, which means there’s just not room for all of them. And I like a lot of light and space around each chair, so it’s hard. Some chairs get to live with friends, some are in storage, and quite a few are piled in my bedroom. It’s crazy.
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| (Above) This Eames chair is nicknamed “the Eiffel Tower.” (Below) The seat of Hans Wegner’s curvaceous Wishbone is made of hand-twisted paper cording. |
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D Home: But you’ve got to have favorites.
RB: How dare you! That’s like asking…. Well, okay, I am very partial to Mies van der Rohe. Mies is my man. “Less is more,” and “God is in the details,” and all that. His chairs take the essence of sitting and reduce it to its most minimal conclusion. But they’re luxurious, too—not cushy luxurious, but made with honest materials and designed with a grace and an elegance. You feel so stylish when you’re sitting in them. But, like a lot of the furniture of the Bauhaus era—all that chrome tubing and sling seating—you have to get up and move to something upholstered after a while.
D Home: Tell us: which chair started it all?
RB: My Mackintosh Hill House chair. I worked in a department store in Cincinnati in 1987 that had a pair in the couture salon. When those chairs were uncrated—the store hadn’t even opened yet—my heart skipped a beat. I’d never thought about a chair as a work of art before. Can you imagine? At the height of the Victorian era, here comes Charles Mackintosh with his tall, elegant, linear designs. Just as spare as can be. What a contrast to all that brocade and stuffing and ornate carving going on at the time. Yuck. When the store went belly-up after a couple of years, I missed the auction of all the fixtures. I’d already moved on. Then a friend in Indianapolis called and said, “Hey, there’s a weird little store in a mall here, and I think they have a chair like the ones you’re constantly talking about.” So I called and had a long talk with the store owner. Sure enough, it was the real deal—an authorized reproduction. I told her I’d take it. I drove two hours to Indy in the dead of winter. I brought blankets to wrap the Mackintosh in and drove home in the freezing cold with the top down on my little Alfa Romeo Spider. The chair was so tall it wouldn’t fit any other way! I looked like a fool—and that chair looked like a dead body, wrapped up and sticking out of the passenger seat. Luckily, that car had a very good heater.
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| “I was lucky to find this Brno chair by Mies van der Rohe,” Rob says. “Most of these chairs were made with arms of chromed stainless steel. This one has polished stainless arms.” |
D Home: You said something about “authorized reproduction.” Sounds a bit like “real fake.” Can you explain?
RB: Actually, it’s quite the opposite. A lot of these classics have been copied through the years by lots of companies—with all kinds of liberties taken: weird proportions, sloppy joinery, bad welds. Usually, only one maker is authorized by the architect’s estate to build a certain chair. The top names are Knoll, Herman Miller, and Cassina. These makers label their chairs very well. Cassina pieces are even engraved with serial numbers and come with their own little certificates of authenticity. See? I’m not the only one like this.
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| The Le Corbusier LC/1 “came by Greyhound,” Rob says. “Other people pick up long-lost aunts at the bus station; I pick up chairs.” |
D Home: Gosh, PaperCity must pay you a bloody fortune.
RB: Hey, I live for a good score. I’ve found important chairs for as little as $10. I am constantly looking—flea markets, thrift shops, eBay. And over the years I’ve collected dozens of great chairs. I think I’ve got 50 or so now. I had to let a lot of them go when I moved into this high-rise, but I still have a good collection: Mies van der Rohe (of course), Mackintosh, Le Corbusier, Josef Hoffmann, Charles and Ray Eames, Ettore Sottsass, Marcel Breuer, Eero Saarinen, Hans Wegner—all the greats. I guess I need to be surrounded by greatness! Actually, I’m probably hoping some of it will rub off.
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| Rob found a man in Fort Worth to repair the wicker caning of these Mies van der Rohe MR10 chairs. But he spent hours painting on coffee and tea to stain the new caning to match the original. The Florence Knoll table actually belongs to a friend: “I’m just babysitting,” he says. |
Rob Brinkley’s
Chair Tour of Dallas
There are some great chairs just “sitting” around Dallas.
The lobby of the Federal Reserve (2200 N. Pearl St.) has tons of authorized Mies van der Rohes, all in black leather.
The lobby of American Airlines headquarters (4333 Amon Carter Blvd., Fort Worth) is packed with Ettore Sottsass’ blocky Eastside lounge chairs for Knoll, all sitting under a huge map of the world.
Willow Bend’s The Mercury restaurant (6121 W. Park Blvd., Plano) has real Eames chairs around real Saarinen tables, plus Warren Platner wire chairs and tables in the lobby and lounge.
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| Architect Frank Welch loves this Eames Time-Life chair. He’s asked Rob to find one for his own home. |
At the NorthPark Neiman Marcus (400 NorthPark Center) you’ll find Platner chairs in the Steuben showroom upstairs, Eames’ famous lounge chairs and lipstick-red leather Le Corbusier cube chairs in the men’s department, as well as other fabulous finds tucked here and there throughout the store.
The living room of the Rachofsky House (8605 Preston Rd.) boasts Mies van der Rohe’s very rare Tugendhat chairs—Knoll discontinued them years ago—as well as his Barcelona chairs and a Mies daybed. The dining room table is surrounded by Mies’ tubular, cantilevered Brno chairs, too. Perfect.
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| This is the view from Rob’s bed. He pulls chairs from this stash in his bedroom to rotate the “display” throughout his apartment. |
Shop Around
WHERE DOES ROB SHOP FOR HIS FABULOUS CHAIRS? READ ON.
Collage 20th Century Classics
1300 N. Industrial Blvd. 214-828-9888.
“Very high taste level; they love the ‘great Danes’—Wegner, Kjaerholm, Finn Juhl, etc.”
Century Modern
2928 Main St. 214-651-9200.
“Ever-changing inventory of midcentury mod; fun staff.”
Thirty/60
2924 Main St., Ste. 101. 214-742-3060.
“The place for old and new Eames; owner Don Miller is very knowledgeable.”
Used office-furniture stores
“You can really score; they don’t always know what they have!”
The Salvation Army Thrift Store
5554 Harry Hines Blvd. 214-630-5611.
“I’ve done surprisingly well here.”
The Consignment Solution
1904 Skillman Ave. 214-827-8022.
“One of the very few consignment shops that takes midcentury chairs.”
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| Sottsass’ Eastside was another eBay acquisition. |
Sit and Read
ROB BRINKLEY RECOMMENDS THE FOLLOWING TITLES FOR THE NEWLY CHAIR-OBSESSED.
1000 Chairs
by Charlotte and Peter Fiell
The bible! And it’s as thick as one. Sharp, colorful, concise, with dates of origin, designer bios, everything.
Knoll Design
by Eric Larrabee and Massimo Vignelli
Hard to find, but the definitive word on all of the great chairs from Knoll.
Modern Furniture
by John Pile
Out of print, but a must. Highly detailed, it even deconstructs the types of screws used in modern chairs!
Danish Chairs
by Noritsugu Oda
The best for all of the Danish classics. Even the book’s design is artful—elegant and clean, like the chairs themselves.
The Modern Chair
by Clement Meadmore
Basic info, the stories behind each chair, plus measured drawings (build your own Barcelona!).
