Forest installation celebrates designer Robin Day at V&A One of Britain’s most significant furniture designers of the 20th century will be celebrated at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London with a ‘forest’ installation that will lead a trail across the capital marking the design luminary’s centenary. The exhibition Robin Day Works in Wood, curated by Jane Withers, tells the story of how the designer, best known for his work in polypropylene, also loved to work with wood on commercial and personal projects. A forest of timber blocks will be used to display the objects and create a playful spatial landscape outside out the V&A’s 1500-1900 Galleries from 19 September. The installation will features some of his most famous furniture designs alongside handmade objects and drawings which have never before been exhibited, as well as writings that reveal his deep attachment to nature. Born in 1915, Robin Day’s design career spanned nearly seven decades and his prolific body of work included the ground-breaking stacking Polypropylene chair (1963) we all know so well, which sold in tens of millions worldwide.

But Day grew up among the beechwoods and timber furniture factories of High Wycombe, and his understanding and love for wood as a material was expressed both in professional furniture designs and in objects he made for pleasure throughout his life. Jane Withers said: “Wood played a huge part in Day’s life, both as a designer and in his home life, but it is an aspect of his work that few people know much about. Exploring this strand through the archives and Day’s private woodwork not only highlights how he turned wood into an expressive modern material but also his profound attachment to nature as a source of inspiration as well as raw material, an approach that feels immensely relevant today and is brought to life in the installation.” Part of a series of events to mark the designer’s centenary during London Design Festival, Robin Day Works in Wood will form the focus of Day in London – a trail across the city joining the V&A, with the V&A seminar programme and Case Furniture.

Great Escapes: Sea View Stays Discover Britain’s top historical sites The new issue of Discover Britain on sale today in the US Discover the story of St DavidOne of the U.K.’s most influential midcentury furniture designers, the late Robin Day has been fêted across Britain this spring and summer in recognition of the centenary of his birth this year. gaming chair for racingThe latest nod to the designer’s lasting achievements is the release of a poster by the Robin and Lucienne Day Foundation, a striking graphic homage to 100 of his original creations.garden swing chair melbourne Designed by Studio Fernando Gutierrez and distributed by the London-based design shop twentytwentyone, the poster explores some seven decades of Day’s life, on both personal and professional levels, through photographs drawn from the Robin and Lucienne Day Foundation’s archives. cheapest glass table and chairs

Many of the images derive from Robin Day’s personal design-photography collection and have never before been published. After winning the 1948 International Competition for the Design of Low-Cost Furniture at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, with designs for multipurpose storage units made from molded plywood (in collaboration with Clive Latimer), Day went on to work extensively with the British manufacturer Hille. la z boy leather chairOne of his iconic designs for the brand, the ground-breaking 1963 Polypropylene stackable chair, became a sensation the world over for its streamlined and cost-effective approach to mass-market contemporary seating. patio chair cushions stripedOther highlights of Day’s portfolio include the metal Toro bench, designed for stations of the London Underground, and his seating for the Barbican Arts Center.buy dog wheelchair australia

Later this autumn, Day’s timeless aesthetic will once more be heralded, with an exhibition during the London Design Festival at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The show, which opens on September 19, will focus specifically on Day’s use of wood in his designs and will feature an installation by Assemble, the young, Turner Prize–nominated architecture studio.wicker dining chair reviews Robin Day 100 Designs poster; big bean bag chair amazonThe Polypropylene side chair and armchair, 1960s British design classics by Robin Day, will be re-launched in the John Lewis Oxford Street redesigned Home Department to celebrate Robin Day’s centenary.high heel shoe chair ebay Robin Day, one of the most significant British furniture designers of the 20th Century, pioneered the use of the new plastic Polypropylene with furniture company Hille to produce the world’s first mass-produced, injection-moulded Polypropylene chair (1963).

The ground-breaking Polypropylene chair represented a major breakthrough in furniture design technology and sold in tens of millions all over the world. The Robin and Lucienne Day Foundation has collaborated with the Hille Educational Products to re-launch the Polypropylene side chair and armchair in the iconic original colours – light grey, charcoal and the flame orange. The side chair is fitted with Robin Day’s original elegant P5 stacking frame, with a single neat weld on each side where the front and back legs meet. This frame had been dropped in the 1980s and successive poor productions had eroded the presentation of the classic designs. The Polypropylene side chair and armchair will now return to the market with all the freshness and authority they had when they were first launched in the 1960s. Robin Day commented on the 1963 design: ‘this chair arose from the need for a multi-purpose side chair at very low cost. Some of the uses we had in mind were cafés and canteens, chairs for working at a table, seating in lecture halls and assembly halls, and high chairs for use at bars and benches.’

The Architect’s Journal described the Polypropylene chair as ‘the most significant development in British mass produced chair design since the war’, and in 1965 it received the British design establishment’s seal of approval in the form of a Design Centre Award. Paula Day, daughter of Robin and Lucienne recalls the original launch: ‘There was a big display of the chairs in Hille’s showroom in Albemarle Street, with a sign saying that the year was ’63 and the chairs cost 63 shillings. Now as then, there’s probably no other chair with such high design status selling at such a low price. This was something my father passionately believed in – good design that was accessible to everyone.’ Brian Foster, Managing Director of Hille Educational Products Ltd comments, ‘Working with The Robin and Lucienne Day Foundation to bring this design classic back to its former glory was a challenge and a learning experience, from matching the original colours to finding the perfect steel frame, we persevered and I really feel we have manufactured a Polypropylene side chair and Polypropylene armchair that Robin Day would have been very proud of.’

Robin and Lucienne Day greatly admired the John Lewis ethos and as Design Consultants from 1962 – 1987 they enjoyed a long and productive relationship with the company. The Polypropylene side chair and armchair collection will be re-launched in the redesigned Home department of John Lewis Oxford Street, as part of the Robin and Lucienne Day range at John Lewis. Following the launch the Polypropylene side chair, armchair and 675 chair by Robin Day will be included in the John Lewis Design Icons department nationwide. Robin Day believed that good design should be accessible to everyone, and John Lewis carries forward that principle by offering the Polypropylene side chair at £49 and the armchair at £59. Available from John Lewis. For press enquiries please contact Lucy Price at Caro Communications: T: 020 7713 9388 About Robin and Lucienne Day After graduating from the RCA and working in exhibition and graphic design, Robin Day’s big break came when he and fellow design lecturer Clive Latimer won the 1948 International Competition for Low-Cost Furniture at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York.

This heralded the start of his career in furniture design and his collaboration with the furniture manufacturer Hille. He was commissioned to design all the seating for London’s Royal Festival Hall, which opened at the Festival of Britain in 1951. His prolific work for Hille included the groundbreaking 1963 Polypropylene chair, which sold in tens of millions worldwide. Designs for other clients included televisions and radios for Pye, aircraft interiors for BOAC and seating for the Barbican centre, London. Robin Day was loved for his kindness and humour, and earnestly believed in the power of good design to improve everyone’s lives. 2015 is the centenary of Robin Day’s birth. Lucienne Day, best known for her textiles, was a virtuoso pattern designer and colourist in a variety of media. Like her husband, she made her career breakthrough at The Festival of Britain when she launched her uncompromisingly modern textile ‘Calyx’. She went on to design over sixty outstanding furnishing fabrics for the seminal British retailer Heal’s, as well as dress fabrics, wallpapers, tea towels, carpets and china tableware for many other companies in Britain and overseas.