Robert Venturi with The Venturi Collection, c. 1984. Image from the Knoll Archive.
In May 1984, Knoll introduced a series of five chairs designed by Robert Venturi, which presented a postmodern twist on the history of the chair: the Queen Anne, Chippendale, Sheraton, Empire and Art Deco. Although the chairs were Venturi's pet project, Denise Scott Brown was also involved in the design process. In its material, the Venturi Collection continues the modernist preoccupation with molded plywood, especially when considered alongside the developments made by Thonet, Eames and Saarinen in the decades prior. But in contrast, the chairs’ final stamped-out silhouettes can also be viewed as examples of historical pastiche. For the design, Venturi insisted that the laminated plywood layers be exposed along the chair edge as a reference to, or—to use Scott Brown and Venturi’s terminology—a “symbol” of the chair’s industrial manufacture.
Recently, the very prototypes for these chairs were given to the Fisher Fine Arts Library by the Venturi Scott Brown firm, which had been downsizing its space in Manayunk. Eight of the chairs are on display, along with the firm's seminar table - a one-of-a-kind Venturi design - in the Fisher's Rare Book Room.
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