Fantastic plastic?
By Christa TerryForget ugly old monobloc white lawn chairs — plastic can indeed be fantastic as is evidenced by the lovely images below. The only thing I can’t vouch for is whether your beshorted legs will stick to these chairs once they’ve spent some time baking in the sun on a hot summer day.

The Alchemia Polycarbonate Dining Chair from Calligaris looks smashing as a modern insert in an otherwise traditional dining room, provided you choose the right jewel-like hue.

I grew up around Danish furniture, which one of my friends once described as looking “like something out of a hotel lobby.” Ah well, that may be true, but that doesn’t mean I love the style any less. This perhaps familiar-looking chair, designed by Verner Panton, was the world’s first one piece molded chair.

I know nothing at all about this chair outside of the fact that it’s listed on a furniture rental site as having been born in the 1970s. It certainly looks the part, but what purports to be vintage isn’t always vintage, no?

Of course, no plastic chair roundup would be complete without at least one image of this particular Eames chair. The first time I saw one of these was during a visit to MoMA…it doesn’t get much cleaner than this piece, which is still available in many forms today. Me, I want the rocking version of this chair most desperately.
February 11th, 2008 at 10:55 am
I can vouch for the vintage of that 70’s chair. The family of a good friend of mine had almost those precise chairs sitting around a white plastic table in the kitchen back then. Yes, they even had the orange cushions.
February 11th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Oooh, pretty! But there is something about that jewel-toned hard plastic that suggests “severe burns.” I’d keep these under a tree or an awning.
And, as Twistie says, that bowl chair in the last picture could very well be of ’70s vintage. My junior high had a set of orange ones in the drama classroom, for some reason. They were really uncomfortable, actually.
February 11th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
(second-to-last picture, that is)
February 11th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
I would have put them outdoors, too, Bridey, until I saw them in a beautifully set up formal dining room. The chairs were magenta, I think, and they added just the right degree of pizazz to an otherwise stodgy room. Very neat effect, all in all.
February 12th, 2008 at 12:33 am
The wire base on the Eames chair is really a sight to behold. The chair seems to float more than anything else, which is really incredible given all those criss-crossed wires. I bet it’s really strong and can take weight well.
February 12th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Phillippe Starck has also designed plastic dining chairs (Louis Ghost Chair, Victoria Ghost Chair, etc.).