Donald "Don" T. Chadwick (born 1936) is an American
industrial design
Industrial design is a process of design applied to physical Product (business), products that are to be manufactured by mass production. It is the creative act of determining and defining a product's form and features, which takes place in advan ...
er specializing in
office seating.
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Early life
He was born in Los Angeles and developed an interest in furniture making from his grandfather, a cabinetmaker. He studied design at the
University of California, Los Angeles.
Career
He worked for architect
Victor Gruen, and in 1964 founded his own practice. As a young designer Chadwick gained recognition for his entries in the
Pasadena Art Museum's California Design exhibitions.
His 1968 prototype for cardboard furniture predates the easy edges cardboard furniture by
Frank Gehry
Frank Owen Gehry, , FAIA (; ; born ) is a Canadian-born American architect and designer. A number of his buildings, including his private residence in Santa Monica, California, have become world-renowned attractions.
His works are considered ...
.
He has designed the
Chadwick modular seating
Chadwick Modular Seating is a modular sofa that is composed of one or more sections that can be arranged to create long, contiguous seating surfaces for offices and homes. Multiple section shapes were produced in many fabrics and colors. Sections ...
system (1974) and, in cooperation with
Bill Stumpf
William Eugene Stumpf (March 1, 1936 – August 30, 2006) was an American furniture designer who helped design the Aeron, Embody and Ergon
Ergon may refer to:
* Ergon, alien from the ''Doctor Who'' serial ''Arc of Infinity''
* Ergon, concep ...
, the
Equa 1 (1984) and the
Aeron chair (1994), all for
Herman Miller.
Among his recent designs is the
Chadwick chair and Spark chair for
Knoll, and Ballo for Human Scale.
Publications
* Friedman, Mildred, Ed. ''A Serious Chair — Design Quarterly 126''. Minneapolis and Cambridge: The Walker Art Center and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1984.
* Olivares, Jonathan, Ed. ''Don Chadwick Photography 1961-2005''. Barcelona: Apartamento Publishing S.L., 2019
* Amy Auscherman, Sam Gawe, Leon Ransmeier, Eds. "Ergon Chairs 1976" in ''Herman Miller: A Way of Living''. London: Phaidon Press, 2019. 460-481
Awards
*
''I.D.'' magazine Award for Design Excellence, 1970, 1971, 1973, 1974
*
ASID Award for Ergon seating, 1976
* The Governor's Award, Design Michigan Exhibition, 1977
* ''I.D.'' magazine "Designer of the 70s", 1979
* IBD and
IDSA awards for casegoods, 1980
* IBD Gold Award for ''Equa chair'', 1984
* IBD Gold Award for Ethospace interiors, 1985
* ''
Time'' magazine, design: "Best of the Decade" for ''Equa chair'', 1990
* ''
BusinessWeek'' magazine and
Industrial Designers Society of America awarded
Design of the Decade to the
Aeron chair, 2000
*
National Design Awards
The American National Design Awards, founded in 2000, are funded and awarded by Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum is a design museum housed within the Andrew Carnegie Mansion in Manhattan, New ...
, Product Design winner, 2006
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chadwick, Don
American furniture designers
California people in design
1936 births
Living people
Artists from Los Angeles