| (Description / Tokuhiro Amano)Launch Year / 1974This is a plastic molded chair from the 1970's. Nowadays it is not really remarkable. In today's world, there are already chairs from Joe Colombo, and if you trace back in time, there were molded chairs for children from Marco Zanuso.One can confidently say that the molded plastic chair has become an internationally-established product. In 1970, a company called Artemide was selling FRP (fiberglass-reinforced sheet resin plate) pressure-pressed molded-chair series from Vico Magistretti named Selene, Gaudi, and Vicario. However, in 1974 when Kartell #4875 was released, making a whole chair by injection molding was somewhat revolutionary. Tomio Okura, who was working in Carlo Bartoli's office in Milan at the time, was informed by a director about a plan for a new chair, and he immediately started mocking up a full-sized product out of plaster in a kitchen at the office. Living in the present world where CAD is available, such a mock-up process is unimaginable, but he says he learned through this mock-up process that chairs must be examined in full-size. After a few months of trial and error, the shaping was finished, and he went to negotiate with the company Kartell. It was finally commercialized about four years later. According to him, engineer Piccacio's effort must have been enormous, and company president Castelli's support should not be forgotten. The four legs of the chair are molded separately and then inserted into the main body The chair has no distinctive characteristics, but it has become a popular model over its long lifetime and it is still being produced. I feel this is a historical product. |