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Rain's Weekly Design Minutiae: How the Red & Blue Chair Seat/Back are Connected to the Frame

I have to believe one of you is seeking this information

By Rain Noe - February 28, 2017

in Furniture Design

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This is the second piece of furniture I ever built. It's a duplicate of Gerrit Rietveld's Red & Blue Chair, designed in 1919. I built mine in the early '90s, before the internet, and I found a book in the library that had a drawing very similar to the one below:

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From that I broke out an architect's scale and was able to reverse engineer the dimensions, then construct the chair. I was shocked at how comfortable it is, being made out of hard wood; the ergonomics are just perfect.

For the frame Rietveld used beech, which I couldn't get my hands on, so I milled some Poplar down. For the seat and backrest I used the same material he had, plywood (1/2" in my case). I painted mine blue and purple because I thought it looked better.

When I was building it, one thing I couldn't tell by looking at the diagram was how the seat and backrest were connected to the frame. I ended up drilling directly through them and into the crossmembers, then gluing in dowels. It was a real hack job; not only ugly, but they broke when a heavyset friend of mine sat in the chair and I had to reglue them.

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I recently did some online searches to find out how they were originally joined, and could find nothing. In every photo I see, the seat/back joinery is obscured.

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But the other day I passed the Cassina showroom in SoHo. They've licensed the chair and have one on the floor. I went inside and the staff ignored me while I got down on my hands and knees to peer under it and see how both were connected. I was dying to know what wondrous, magical joinery technique Rietveld had employed.

I was surprised to find it was nothing more than L-brackets, the kind you get for a few cents at your local hardware store, that were slightly bent to suit the angle. Here's what I mean:

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Anyways, I couldn't find this information online, so now I'm posting it in the hopes that the next person who searches for it will find this. I cannot legally recommend that you knock the chair off, but if you want to build one for your own edification it's fun and you will be surprised at how comfy the chair is to sit in, even for long stretches.

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David Beck

7 years ago

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In 1988 I did the same thing using an original at the Milwaukee Art Museum. They gave me some white cotton gloves to handle it. Pretty cool.

I honestly don't remember the exact hardware they used. But I suspect it is similar to the "L" brackets as I made my chair with 8 hinges. The advantage to a hinge it is infinitely adjustable to the angles of the seat and back.

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Fouad Azar

7 years ago

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good student

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Sam Ettinger

7 years ago

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From the book "Rietveld meubels om zelf te maken" (How to make Rietveld Furniture):

"Ten behoeve van montage van rugleuning en zitting in de regels hieronder gaten boren, voor houtschroeven van 3,5 mm lengte met platte kop. Gaten zodanig boren dat de schroef haaks op rug of zitting uitkomt. Schroeven zo diep verzinken dat ze 5mm in het plaatwerk steken."

Engels:
"To secure back and seat, bore holes in the rails underneath for flat-headed woodscrews with a length of 3.5 mm. Bore the holes in such a way that the screws will be driven in at right angles in back or seat. Countersink the screws 5mm into the plywood."

The instructions also include a very good quote about how one's sitzfleisch ("seat-meat") should behave in a chair, but I'll omit that epigram. Consider it a treat for whomever buys the book.

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O Studio

7 years ago

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Great to know - so many things aren't as simple as they seem.

Speaking of chair structure - I was looking at some Jens Risom lounge chairs (the ones with the straps). In the older original frames, you can see the straps are secured with these very noticeable tacks directly on the rear of the frame. The newer productions wrap the straps all the way around to the inside of the frame, however I can't see how they are secured. Anybody have insight/photo of this new detail?

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E. Agle

7 years ago

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The Dutch Wiki has all the measurement information including joinery information.
Original joinery: 16 round, beech pens on each point of contact, the back and seat are nailled on the slats 's.

Funny fact: Goal, Mass machine production. Rietveld hoped that machine production would, on the one hand lighten the workers load, and on the other hand that good quality products (like his chair) would come in reach for the general public.

https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rood-blauwe_stoel (Sorry no Eng translation of the tekst, but the table is self-explanatory)

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Ray Jepson

7 years ago

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The original may not use the same hardware as the Cassina version. I would love to hear from someone with an original or who lives near a museum with one.

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Andrew Bates

7 years ago

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That was also the inspiration for the wassily chair. The ergonomics inspired the Bauhaus masters to take The Style even further and move it from art to design.

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Nicholas Post

7 years ago

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Great! Thanks for posted it. Yes, I read about it and got some kind of "open source for designing this chair which I will one day and these hidden L-brackets certainly help!

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