Norman Cherner

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Norman Cherner (* 1920 in Brooklyn ; † May 30, 1987 ) was an American pioneer of prefabricated house construction and designer of seating furniture made of molded plywood . His designs belong to the mid-century modern style .

life and work

Norman Cherner studied and taught in the Fine Arts Department at Columbia University . From 1947 to 1949 he was a lecturer at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City , where he dealt with the Bauhaus movement.

At the beginning of his career, Cherner developed an overall concept of houses with inexpensive modular living space and affordable furniture, shelves, glassware, lights and even toys, which he designed for this. He published his ideas in Make Your Own Modern Furniture (1953), How to Build Children's Toys and Furniture (1954), Fabricating Houses from Component Parts (1958), and How to Build a House for Less than $ 6,000 (1960). In 1957 he implemented one of the first prefabricated house designs for the US Department of Housing . The prototype was also exhibited in Vienna . After the exhibition there, Cherner had the house transported to Connecticut , where he lived and used it as a studio. However, his prefabricated house concept was not commercially successful.

In the 1950s, furniture maker Herman Miller, under the direction of George Nelson, worked on developing lightweight plywood chairs. Your Pretzel Chair ( German  pretzel chair ) was designed in Nelson's office in 1952 and produced by the Lawrence (Massachusetts) -based company Plycraft . The chair turned out to be too fragile and expensive, whereupon Herman Miller discontinued production in 1957. Since Plycraft had already invested in materials and technology for the production of furniture made of molded plywood, George Nelson recommended that the company let Norman Cherner design a more robust and affordable chair.

Paul Goldman, the operator of Plycraft , signed a contract with Cherner for this. When Cherner handed over his design for the Cherner Chair to Plycraft in 1958, however, he was informed that the project had been discontinued. In reality, however, Goldman had the chair manufactured in-house, attributing the design to a fictional person named "Bernardo".

In April 1959, Cherner found his design in a New York furniture store. Cherner sued the company, causing Plycraft to pay royalties. The chair was so popular that it appeared on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post weekly magazine , created by Norman Rockwell's illustrator and titled The Artist at Work . In the early 1970s, however, the Plycraft company took the entire Cherners seating line out of its range.

Norman Cherner died in 1987 of pancreatic cancer. His sons Benjamin and Thomas founded the Cherner Chair Company in 1999 and began producing furniture based on their father's designs.

In museums

Cherner's side table from 1951 (marble top on black tripod legs) is in the design study collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. His Cherner Chair is in the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein .

literature

  • Mel Byars: The Design Encyclopedia. L. King Publishing, 2004, ISBN 0-87070-012-X , p. 136.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Industrial Design , Issue 8, Design Publications, 1961, p. 14.
  2. ^ A b Harry Vernon Anderson: Interior Design , Issue 58, Volume 6, Interior Design Inc, 1987, p. 61
  3. ^ About the designer: Norman Cherner. In: aram.co.uk
personal data
SURNAME Cherner, Norman
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American pioneer of prefabricated house construction and seating designer
DATE OF BIRTH 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Brooklyn
DATE OF DEATH May 30, 1987