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19.2.10

High back chairs.

Been on the lookout now for a new chair to replace the contemporary blue leather recliner I've been abusing since college. Recently an apparently vital bolt has taken to falling out and dumping me on the floor--in the middle of Parks and Rec and a well-earned beer. The first midcentury modern piece that really did it for me was Eero Saarinen's womb chair, which is essentially a really comfortable armchair with most of the chair removed. Unfortunately, new womb chairs are in the same price range as new transmissions, and the likelihood of me needing the latter before the former is pretty high. A runner up is a well-upholstered diamond chair, another Knoll classic, deisgned by Harry Bertoia and slightly less ubiquitous in apartmenttherapy.com and Dwell spreads than Eames loungers (which ain't cheap, neither). More interesting is Bertoia's bird chair, which looks like a diamond chair with a mohawk. The advantage of buying a vintage diamond or bird chair vs. a womb chair is that the covers can be replaced for a few hundred dollars. A full reupholstery job on a used womb chair may be $1k or more. Keep in mind that when these things were first popular, everyone smoked.

bird chair

Photobucket

Galaxie Modern in Lynchburg, Va. currently has in stock a bird chair with original upholstery, apparently in good shape, for $1200. That's less than half the price of a new chair and one-third the cost of a womb chair. I know, I know. I probably won't buy it.

Really wanted to find a video from High Back Chairs, a band that's probably accurately rated (as pretty good), but's notable for Jeff Nelson and Jim Spellman's participation. Couldn't though.

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