2013, Swiss stone pine, birch plywood, height 92 cm, length 132 cm, depth 50 cm, height of seat 46 cm. (DRAX)

A unique piece.

Designed and executed on February 9 and 10, 2013 for the project „Neu/Vertraut“ in St. Moritz/Swizzerland.

Exhibited in: „Tête-à-tête – Neues Design in historischen Stuben“, Engadiner Museum, St. Moritz/Swizzerland, 5. 7. – 31.10. 2013

Lit.: cat. „Tête-à-tête – Neues Design in historischen Stuben“, Engadiner Museum, St. Moritz 2013.

‘Retino’ takes the traditional forms of the hand-crafted chair and adds a new seat, manufactured by modern CNC technology. breadedEscalope extends the chair to a bench and adapts the seating area with a grid of sockets that allows for random arrangements of the backrests. The Stabelle becomes a multi-purpose and contemporary furniture piece that encourages situational seating arrangement without losing the typical features of the traditional chair.

To the exhibition “Neu/Vertraut” and “Tête-à-tête”

“The Stabelle chair, an archetypical alpine chair that has been in use for centuries is still an everday sight throughout alpine regions, and therefore lends itself for new interpretations. Under the title of ‘New/Familiar’, the ‘Happen Projects’ collective invited various designers to engage in an interaction with an industrially produced Stabelle with the aim to bring together contemporary design and alpine tradition. According to Giovanna Lisignoli, the initiator of Happen Projects, the archetypical chair – often customized with detailed and highly individual craft processes – reflects narratives of alpine culture, thus alluding to multi-layered approaches in contemporary design practices.
‘Tête-à-tête – New design in historic living rooms’ presents works of these contemporary designers in the Engadine Museum St. Moritz. Thirteen adapted chairs enter into a dialogue with the historical interiors and the almost 80 Stabellen that belong to the museum. The works invite to engage with the potential entailed in design as well as the creative strategies of today’s designers. Exhibited in conjunction with historical Stabellen, they provoke questions about the past and the current roles of seating furniture, or perhaps about ways in which richly and ornate chairs came to represent the status of wealthy and affluent families. The discussion about the Stabelle directs our attention for once to the chair, an everyday object, which is often given too little attention in the context of a museum for alpine culture of habitation in comparison to more prestigious objects. “ (Charlotte Schütt)