Functional, flexible,
and poetic.
Finding Contrasts
The work of French designers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec has been described as functional and unpretentious, and designer Jasper Morrison calls them “thoughtful and disciplined, with a real spirit and poetry.” All of this sounds right for brothers who grew up in Quimper, a region of the French countryside known for the homey and practical, but highly decorative, pottery that has been made there for centuries.
One of their strengths as designers is the ability of the Bouroullecs to reinvent traditional furniture pieces and make them fit the flexible living requirements of the 21st century. Much of their work—the Lit Clos (enclosed bed), for example, which provides a practical way to create private sleeping spaces in open-plan environments—is meant to be personalized by the user.
Unconventional
The pieces that comprise the Steelwood family began—as so many Magis creations do—with Magis founder Eugenio Perazza. He wanted an inexpensive wooden chair with simple joints made of pressed metal. The Bouroullecs liked the idea but wanted to take it a step farther—they wanted to make a chair that would be cost-competitive with plastic chairs but have a long life-span, during which time the materials would develop a decorative patina from use and wear.
They decided on an unconventional blending of two materials that could not be more conventional—wood and steel. Warm and cold. Organic and inorganic. Vegetable and mineral.
“When we made the initial drawings, we were thinking about old cars made from punched metal and their fine organic shapes,” Erwan said. “We made a drawing, unsure of whether the process would allow it, and sent it to Italy. They said, yes, it’s possible.” And then the brothers made numerous mockups to find the right shape and contour—the right character—for the chair.
We were thinking about old cars
made from punched metal
and their fine organic shapes
- Erwan Bouroullec
Skilled Metalworkers
The Steelwood Chair could not exist without the accumulated decades of experience of some skilled Italian metalworkers, who worked out how to fabricate the metal pieces, each of which “has to be incredibly well done,” according to Erwan. Nine tools gradually curve and shear the metal in sequence. The “simple” form of the chair is thus the result of a series of very complex mechanical procedures.
“It’s a chair that says, ‘If you unscrew me, you can make me, you can build me,” says Erwan. Steelwood pieces are designed for easy disassembly. Turning a few screws separates metal parts from wood, and the materials can then be recycled separately.
“We tried to make a chair that could fit a number of people, and it doesn’t look like a chair for rich or poor, woman or man—it’s universal,” says Erwan. “Just made in metal and wood that will last and grow old quite nicely. The chair says, ‘Believe me that I’m a chair that will last.’”
