The story of a chair

What's the most photographed chair of 2020? The answer is Chandigarh chair which is humble but full of stories. 

The story of the Chandigarh chair starts back in the 1950s.

In March 1947, the Mountbatten Plan was announced that India and Pakistan were partitioned. Lahore, the former capital of Punjab, became part of Pakistan in the scheme.

So Punjab needed a new capital to replace Lahore, and Chandigarh, India's first planned city, was born.

In 1951, the Indian government approached Le Corbusier on a recommendation and commissioned him to work on the master plan of the new city, as well as the architectural design of the administrative center. Le Corbusier turned to his cousin, Pierre Jeanneret, for help. So Pierre Genneret, from 1951 to 1965, moved to India to oversee the implementation of the project.

During this period Pierre Genneret, together with Le Corbusier, created a large number of architectural works, including civic projects, schools, houses and so on. Besides, Pierre Genneret also has a job developing furniture for construction projects. During this time, he designed more than 50 different types of furniture for different uses based on local characteristics. Including the now-famous Chandigarh chair.

The Chandigarh chair was designed and manufactured around 1955, after repeated selection, using Burmese teak to protect against moisture and insects, and rattan woven to maintain good air permeability. The V-shaped legs were strong and durable.

Indians always have the habit of sitting on the floor. The purpose of designing Chandigarh Chair furniture series was to "let the citizens of Chandigarh have chairs to sit on". Once mass-produced, the Chandigarh chair was initially used in large numbers administrative offices in the Parliament Building.

Chandigarh chair, the formal name is Conference Chair, namely "Parliament House meeting chair".

But their popularity did not last long, as the Chandigarh chair began to fall into disuse as locals preferred more modern designs. The Chandigarh chairs of the time, abandoned in various corners of the city, piled up in mountains.

But in 1999, the Chandigarh chair, which had been on death row for decades, had a dramatic reversal of fortune. Eric Touchaleaume, a French furniture dealer, saw an opportunity when he heard about the piles of abandoned chairs in Chandigarh from news reports. So he went to Chandigarh to buy a lot of Chandigarh chair.

It then took about seven years to restore and arrange the furniture before it was advertised as an exhibition by European auction houses. At a Sotheby's auction, the price was said to be as high as 30 to 50 million yuan, and Eric Touchaleaume is believed to have made hundreds of millions of yuan. 

So far, the Chandigarh chair has once again come back to people's attention and attracted wide attention.

The second key to the Chandigarh chair's return was the 2013 documentary Origin. The Chandigarh furniture is recorded in a counter-narrative way. From the auction house to the buyers, the process of tracing the origin of Chandigarh, India, records the flow of capital and the ups and downs of art.

Nowadays, Chandigar chair is highly sought after by collectors, designers and furniture lovers all over the world. It has become one of the common single products in many stylish and tasteful household designs.