Max Lamb's Exercises in Seating demonstrates material experiments through chair design
Milan 2015: London designer Max Lamb presented 42 of his seat designs made using a wide variety of materials and processes within a disused garage in Milan last week (+ slideshow).
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For his Exercises in Seating retrospective exhibition, Max Lamb arranged a variety of his chairs and stools in a circle that took up the full width of Spazio Sanremo in the city's 5vie design district.
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The items were ordered roughly chronologically, starting from his first pieces created while studying at London's Royal College of Art (RCA) through to the most-recent products, which were designed specifically for the show.
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Curated by design consultant Federica Sala, the exhibition took the title of Lamb's RCA thesis that he completed in 2006.
"Exercises in Seating is a living catalogue of the chair as an archetype of man and emblem of the conviviality denied at the act of creation," said Sala.
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The designer's range of experiments with materials and their resulting forms was reiterated by showing the variety of pieces side by side.
"Each piece represents a different phase in the same obsessive search for the identity of the material, sometimes brutally sculpted, other times formally measured, released and recomposed," Sala said.
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Lamb's early designs on show included the 2006 Pewter Stool, formed by pouring the liquid metal into a mould dug out from sand.
The creation of the Bronze Poly Chair, from the same year, involved hand-carving a polystyrene chair and then casting it in bronze.
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The Delaware Bluestone Chair was carved from 120 kilograms of solid rock, while the Rusty Sheet Steel Chair was folded from a section of oxidised metal.
Moving around the circle, visitors also came across a spruce pine chair designed to be assembled by its user and a lounge seat with a frame made entirely from standard wooden dowels.
![Exercises in Seating by Max Lamb](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/04/Max-Lamb_Exercises-in-Seating_Milan-2015_dezeen_468_2.jpg)
A chair Lamb created as part of an installation in Milan last year – in which walls, floor and furniture were all made from a speckled engineered marble – was also displayed.
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Other materials presented in the exhibition included expanded polystyrene, enamelled steel, ebonised Scottish oak and wool felt.
"The ongoing investigation dedicated to the material, unable to find a point of arrival even after excellent formal results, gives life to a series of numerical variants or experimental variations on the same piece," said the curator.
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Exercises in Seating was on show from 14 to 19 May at Via Zecca Vecchia 3 for Milan design week.