Serendipity at Silicon Valley

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Hector Guimard

Lyon, March 10, 1867 – New York, May 20, 1942

I have been in love with the work of this man for a long time and I didn’t know him!

I didn’t know who was the brilliant mind behind those beautiful buildings, furniture and objects. Hector Guimard was the best-known representative of the French Art Nouveau style of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 

Guimard was as much a designer and engineer as he was an architect, and involved himself in every aspect of his buildings. 

Its critical reputation has risen since the 1960s, as many art historians have praised his architectural and decorative work, the best of it done during a relatively brief fifteen years of prolific creative activity.

Guimard, famous for designing the entrances to the Paris metro, did many more projects; he incorporated the principles of the Art Nouveau style in his works, always having shapes of plants, flowers, flowing lines and aggressive curves. 

It is a shame that a large number of his buildings have been demolished, many of which he watched vanish. He left an obscure legacy marked by a disappearance of much of his work.  

He made so many things that I wouldn’t have enough space to place them here and to chose them was a real pain, because I wanted all of them…

I found this amazing set on Flickr with more of his beautiful work:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dalbera/sets/72157626265472708/with/5526351583/

Michael Thonet  discovered a method of bending wood. Thonet unravelled the complicated technical properties of wood, explored the limitations of its flexibility and developed a new body of design whose appeal extended beyond mere novelty. His furniture designs were simple and graceful with a distinctive quality that belied its true strength.

Ladder Back Chair - Hight Back Chair - The Hill House Chair

When I was studing Industrial Design, my favorite class was History of Design. In this class I learned about all the different movements of design throughout history. There I was introduced for the first time to all the famous designers and architects of all time and their most extraordinary and iconic designs of the 20th century.

I’ll start with a series of posts about these designers and their extraordinary work. 

My first post is dedicated to the Scottish designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh and one of his most famous chairs.

The Ladder Back Chair.
From the minute I saw this chair I fell in love with it, and this love still remains with me.

This chair was designed by Mackintosh on 1903 for the Hill House, it is a chair in dark wood, designed into geometrical shapes, perpendicular delicate lines and a tall ladder back.