Chairman Rolf Fehlbaum

"In the beginning people spent their days walking upright and their nights lying down. Eventually someone invented sitting. And chairs. Chairs evolved ... and multiplied. A million years (give or take) pass. A boy named Rolf is born into a family in Basel that builds shops. Their neighbors make cheese and chocolate. 1953: Rolf's father, Wili Fehlbaum, goes to America and sees a chair that blows his mind. It is by Charles and Ray Eames". Thus begins Chairman, a poetic and humorous true story about Swiss enterpreneur Rolf Fehlbaum and his internationally known furniture design company, Vitra. Acclaimed graphic designer Tibor Kalman's 600-page pictorial essay tells the story of chair design, from the invention of the chair to the success story of Vitra. The company developed a strategy of fostering collaboration with top architects, including Philippe Starck, Frank Gehry, Tadao Ando, Alvaro Siza, Zaha Hadid, and, of course, Charles and Ray Eames; work by these designers appears alongside chairs designed by Marcel Breuer, Gerrit Rietveld, Le Corbusier, Josef Hoffmann, Eero Saarinen, Isamu Noguchi, and Mies van der Rohe. This whimsical book, loaded with color illustrations, will knock you off your seat!