Chicago Tribune Features "The Modern Chair" Exhibit, Including Knoll Designs, Now at the Art Institute of Chicago

The Modern Chair exhibition as promoted on the Art Institute of Chicago website.

The Modern Chair is "a tasty morsel of an exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago [that] reveals why architecture and design ought to be viewed together rather than in separate silos," the Chicago Tribune wrote this week. The feature, published August 26, spotlights the show of twelve chairs by modern masters—including those by Knoll designers Harry Bertoia, Eero Saarinen and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe—which anticipates the museum's first permanent architecture and design installation in an expanded suite of galleries designed by Renzo Piano, slated to reopen Fall 2017.

Zoe Ryan, chief architecture and design curator at the Art Institute, told the Tribune: "The big themes are about...those moments where design meets life and starts to inform the way we do things." The installation will span themes as diverse as skyscrapers, wartime designs, the digital age, and contemporary challenges in the workplace.

For now, The Modern Chair is a preview of sorts. And for those who miss the single room exhibit, the Art Institute of Chicago has announced an expanded version of The Modern Chair, which will open in December as part of a three-part exhibition tentatively titled Design Episodes: Form, Style, Language.

Joining Knoll furniture by Bertoia, Saarinen and Mies, the Art Institute of Chicago added David Adjaye's Washington Skin™ and Washington Skeleton™ Chairs to its permanent collection in July. 

 

STAY CONNECTED AND GET INSPIRED