Wood-fired!

Ming chair

This wonderful piece of design and superb execution is a chair by the late George Ingham. George was the foundation head of the wood workshop at the Canberra School of Art - and, I’m proud to say, was my teacher and mentor.

This chair featured in an exhibition, The Chinese Chair, curated by Rodney Hayward and Nigel Lendon at Craft ACT that “sought to sketch by means of the lineage of the Chinese chair, an understanding of design as being a trajectory of information through both time and space“. It also has a special place in the hearts of those of us who knew George and mourned his passing.

The chair is obviously making strong reference to the Chinese tradition of chair making but melds this with distinctly western techniques and some of the very recognisable vernacular of George Ingham.

There is considerable acknowledgement of the importance of ergonomics in recent western tradition. The profile of the back splat is improved over the typical Chinese chair so that the main support is provided to the lumbar region of the sitter. The angle of the seat and the gentle curve at the front make this a very comfortable chair. The woven seat with its generous width and the carefully placed continuous arm also make the chair a pleasure to sit in.

The construction is a delight to anyone who has wrestled with the severe demands of joining seat to chair legs and back in a way that will withstand the weighty guest who loves to rock their chair back on its hind legs (no one who has ever made a chair would do this!) while also trying to make the piece look elegant and light. The seat corners are mitred with three substantial splines so that there is a large area of long-grain gluing - large enough that a hole can be drilled through the corner joint to accomodate the leg.

The joints are all based on the “spindle in a socket” technique that pretty much defines the traditional Windsor chair that George would have been so familiar with. The solution starts with the stretchers in the undercarriage. This style of square timber transitioning to a thinner round that fits into a drilled socket is very characteristic of George’s work. This joint is used in one of his designs for a student piece - a small side table that teaches edge-jointing, mortise and tenon and these spindle joints. The style is then continued into the very clever joints at the corners of the seat.

Most chairs rely on carefully designed, executed and glued mortice and tenon joints to provide the strength required for the joints between leg and seat and back. In this chair a hole is drilled through each strong splined corner of the seat and the round of the leg simply passes through each hole. Gravity and geometery lock the joint tight. This joint would survive any failure of the glue over time.

The round of the leg continues through the seat to become the support for the continuous arm. The jointing theme is continued here. The round is reduced to a smaller spindle which fits into a socket drilled in the underside of the arm.

The chair is completed by the shaped back support which is inset with three pieces of stone. The considered and beautifully executed transition between the top of the splat and the arm of the chair is typical of George’s thoughtful craftsmanship.

4 comments September 29th, 2008