The Chieftain and the Chair: The Rise of Danish Design in Postwar America

The Chieftain and the Chair: The Rise of Danish Design in Postwar America
ISBN-10
022655032X
ISBN-13
9780226550329
Category
Design
Pages
201
Language
English
Published
2023-05-22
Publisher
University of Chicago Press
Author
Maggie Taft

Description

"In this lively book, Maggie Taft tells the story of how Danish modern furniture emerged in the wake of WWII and became all the rage in the US. By the 1950s Danish Modern furniture was everywhere-in living rooms and on the political stage. A Danish Modern chair was chosen for the first televised presidential debate, in 1960, between JFK and Richard Nixon. When the broadcast began, there were Nixon and Kennedy, sleekly seated in Hans Wegner's "Round Chair." Thanks to that broadcast, an international star, nicknamed simply "the Chair," was born. The story of Danish Modern that Taft tells is anchored in the biographies of two notable chairs: "the Chair" and another one known rather grandly as "The Chieftain" (based on Viking folklore) designed by Finn Juhl. Like Nixon and Kennedy, like Buckley and Vidal, like Elvis and the Beatles, these chairs and their designers and manufacturers duked it out for the hearts and minds and rumps of Americans sitting in front of their TV sets, drinking cocktails, getting frisky on the Danish sofas in their living rooms (and, yes, Mad Men fans, in their offices). These chairs serve as the opportunity for Taft to tell the broader tale of our love affair with Danish Modern-and with our continuing admiration for the innovative style of the early postwar period"--

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