Although the country has prevailed (for now) in my ongoing internal conflict between rural and urban life, I often miss the great gray granite of Manhattan. One of the best things about life in NYC is that there seems to be a museum on every block. The excellent access keeps the mind and heart fit and alive (walking, always walking), and the recent trend in high-profile eateries as part and parcel of the museum experience keeps bellies full. We recently saw how Uhuru Design is doing its part to beautify the digs inside the New Museum’s Birdbath Café, and today we’ll look at Ligne Roset’s contribution to the Guggenheim’s Wright. “The Wright” is the offspring of architect Andre Kikoski, and the “Museum Chair” is the offspring of The Wright, albeit with a bit of help from Kikoski and Ligne Roset, not to mention the spiritual and philosophical guidance of van der Rohe, Corbusier, and Warren Platner.

“Museum Chair.” Designed by Andre Kikoski for Line Roset.

A Modern Chair for the New Millennium

Kikoski’s restaurant is some 1,600-square-feet of floor space dressed up with “a curvilinear wall of walnut layered with illuminated fiber optics, a bar clad in innovative custom metalwork and topped with white Corian, and a sweeping banquette with blue leather seating” (guggenheim.org). The look is clean, crisp, and cool—a spot-on take of the Contemporary Modern—and The Museum Chair sounds a synchronous note. The piece is simple yet elegant. Its core geometricity is balanced well by its tufted back, and its rectilinear lines are tempered by its cylindrical shaft and slightly arched seat. The chair is compact enough to work with the restaurant’s modestly-sized environs, yet broad enough to be comfy. The light design allows for easy swivel and exit so patrons don’t have to tussle on their way back to the museum—there’s more than enough of that beyond the Guggenheim’s spherical walls.

Perhaps the most striking feature of The Museum Chair is its color, a sort of silver-gold that’s neither, taupe, nor bronze, nor umber, nor wenge, but somewhere in that generalized tonal universe. The shade most reminds me of the face paint worn by the Tin Man in the original Wizard of Oz—a color that’s both muted and vibrant. As such, it’s a perfect foil for the preponderance of white, a classy contrast to the audacity of royal blue.

Via Otto.