Eliminating the distinction between craft and industry, the ‘Knotted Chair’ (1996) unites conflicting aspects, methods, and materials to surprise and innovate. Combining hand-crafted tactile design with high-tech industrial processes, the design begins with an aramid braided cord around a carbon fibre core that is manipulated in the traditional macramé technique to form the chair’s shape. The slack threads are impregnated with epoxy and hung in a frame to harden, thus using gravity to accomplish its shape. Besides being technologically innovative, this object is romantic, humane, and decorative altogether. Anything, unlike the design world, had been seen in 1996, thus becoming an icon and a reference point for design and the years to follow. Part of the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the V&A Museum, London, and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, among others, the ‘Knotted Chair’ is a modern miracle of transparency, a highlight of the international design world and a sought after collector’s item.

Caption: Knotted Chair, design by Marcel Wanders, 1996

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