Studio Nyn's Furniture Exists In The Liminal Space Between Art And Design

What do Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe, Zaha Hadid, Frank Gehry, Ray and Charles Eames, and Pierre Jeanneret have in common?

At some point or other in their long, illustrious careers, every single one of these architects and designers came up with their own interpretation of the same everyday object: the chair.

Re-inventing the chair is a design tradition that goes back to Walter Gropius, the founder of the Bauhaus School of Design — widely considered by designers, historians, and enthusiasts to be the wellspring of the Modernist movement in the realms of visual art, architecture, and design.

Almost one hundred years ago in 1920, shortly after the opening of the Bauhaus school, Gropius conceived a chair in line with the distinctive formal qualities of the Bauhaus movement. Since then, the chair has remained an object of both curiosity and creativity for architects, designers, and artists alike.

What is it about the humble chair that fascinates designers so much?

"A chair is a very difficult object. A skyscraper is almost easier," the legendary architect Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe once joked.

Mies' comment perfectly encapsulates one of the key challenges of product design — the integration of function and form. Re-designing the chair allows architects and designers to experiment with materials, techniques, and aesthetics.

A chair, according to designer Carl Clerkin, “...is the piece of furniture that we are most intimate with, the most human of objects, it is highly demanding in terms of structure, ergonomics, comfort, use and abuse, it should be super strong, but at the same time elegant and efficient, simple as well as sophisticated and sculptural."

An exercise in both the technical aspects of design — such as function, structure, and manufacturability — and the sculptural and expressive aspects, the chair sits at the intersection of art and design.

It is this exciting, liminal space between art and design that Studio Nyn — a boutique, interdisciplinary studio based in Mumbai — explores with their practice. Founded by Mumbai-based architect and designer Nynika Jhaveri in 2023, Studio Nyn's services span bespoke furniture and product design, interior styling and curation, as well as spatial and experience design.

An alumnus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with an M.Arch, and Wellesley College, with a B.A. in Architecture and Art History, Jhaveri's work draws inspiration from contemporary Indian art and design, urban visual culture, and intentional, conscious consumption. And of course, she — like many architects, designers, and architect-designers before her — has designed some stellar chairs too.

See a selection of Studio Nyn's eclectic designs below:

Follow Studio Nyn here.

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