Spring Chair

Who would have guessed that I’d find the perfect follow up to Skate Study House in the form of a hypertrophic grass indigenous to tropical Asia? Designer Anthony Marschak, for one, who happened upon the wonders of bamboo while looking for a versatile material for skateboard decks.

As many ancient cultures have known for centuries, Marschak discovered that bamboo is not only resilient and pliable, but tremendously strong. That discovery translated into a second discovery - when bent and glued under pressure, bamboo ply makes an excellent deck. From there it was a quick sideways step to a pioneering material for bentwood furniture, which we might refer to with a wink and a nod as “bentboo,” or “Plyboo,” as sometime collaborator Dan Smith of Smith and Fong Plyboo Flooring calls it.

As I mentioned once upon a time in my look at Teori Bamboo, the rapid-growing grass is intrisically ecological—it is of harvest quality (hard enough to be used as a replacement for wood) within seven years of planting; after harvesting, its root systems remain intact and primed for new growth; and it’s actually stronger than many species of traditional timber (two to three times so by some estimates). Thus, the gracious grass is strong, sustainable, and self-replenishing. And it’s beautiful to boot: one look at the variety of grain lines and tones throughout the Modern Bamboo collections and even old school shapers and joiners might be tempted to look again.

Marschak’s Spring Chair is a great example of bentwood gone bamboo. An homage to modern minimalism, the piece calls to mind the behemoths of bentwood, evoking work by Sori Yanagi, Verner Panton, and, of course, the Eames. The chair is all bamboo: made from one continuous sheet, the three gracious curves of the surface are made to mimic the contours of a seated human. And the versatile material provides the finish surface as well as the structure. This is the beauty of the spring chair—as with Marschak’s pioneering skate decks, the bamboo does all the work. The bonus is that it looks very much like a re-purposed classic while doing it.