Frederick Scott (14 July 1942 – 31 January 2001) was a British

designer A designer is a person who plans the form or structure of something before it is made, by preparing drawings or plans. In practice, anyone who creates tangible or intangible objects, products, processes, laws, games, graphics, services, or exp ...

who was best known for creating th
Supporto
chair. Scott was born in

High Wycombe High Wycombe, often referred to as Wycombe ( ), is a market town in Buckinghamshire, England. Lying in the valley of the River Wye surrounded by the Chiltern Hills, it is west-northwest of Charing Cross in London, south-southeast of Ayl ...

Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-ea ...

in 1942. Scott began his career as an apprentice at the G Plan factory, before going on to study furniture design at the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It offe ...

in 1963. In 1969 Scott was engaged as a designer for the

modern furniture Modern furniture refers to furniture produced from the late 19th century through the present that is influenced by modernism. Post-World War II ideals of cutting excess, commodification, and practicality of materials in design heavily influenced ...

manufacturer Hille. The company was keen to develop its range by commissioning designers to work with new plastics, following its success with

Robin Day Sir Robin Day (24 October 1923 – 6 August 2000) was an English political journalist and television and radio broadcaster. Day's obituary in ''The Guardian'' by Dick Taverne stated that he was "the most outstanding television journalist of ...

's polypropylene chair. Scott's designs exploited the possibilities of moulding offered by polyurethane, and he rapidly made his mark with innovative and distinctive designs such as the Elephant chair and the Athena chair, and in 1974 Hille launched his folding chair. Scott also worked on a new design for a

wheelchair A wheelchair is a chair with wheels, used when walking is difficult or impossible due to illness, injury, problems related to old age, or disability. These can include spinal cord injuries ( paraplegia, hemiplegia, and quadriplegia), cerebr ...

for disabled people, and this work inspired him to design an ergonomic aluminium office chair, the Supporto office chair, in 1976. Despite the commercial risk involved in its manufacture, Hille took a risk and brought the Supporto to market in 1979. It became an internationally successful product, and the chair was soon complemented by other seating and tables in the Supporto range. Supporto is still in production today, manufactured b
Zoeftig
Limited.

Awards and recognition

* Design Award from the

Design Council The Design Council, formerly the Council of Industrial Design, is a United Kingdom charity incorporated by Royal Charter. Its stated mission is "to champion great design that improves lives and makes things better". It was instrumental in the prom ...

* High back Supporto the best office chair according to ''The Independent''.

References

British furniture designers 1942 births 2001 deaths People from High Wycombe {{UK-artist-stub