The Maker Chairs of Joris Laarman were inspired by a simple thought: what if he could design a chair that anyone could fabricate, using current digital tools? Aware of the scale limitations of commercially available 3D printers and computer-guided cutters, he created a chair built from many individual small parts. Each piece is slightly different in shape, all engineered to fit together exactly like a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. He has executed this idea using various materials (resin, solid woods, plastics, metals) and differentiated shapes (triangular, hexagonal, figurative, pixilated). “In the early 20th century,” says Laarman, “modernist pioneers valued and changed aesthetics and our ideas about design when they were inspired by emerging industrial manufacturing methods. Now the realm of digital design tools and digital fabrication is shifting our notion of design and pushing artists to explore the endless new possibilities of the digital revolution.”
Debut of the Maker chairs at Friedman Benda exhibition “Joris Laarman Lab: Bits and Crafts“, 2014:
Maker chairs were included in traveling exhibition “Joris Laarman Lab: Design in the Digital Age” at Groninger Museum, Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, High Museum of Art, and Museum of Fine Arts Houston, 2015-2018:
