This past week, I went to the Museum of Modern Art with my brother to look around. I came across the “Spun Chair.” I first saw it across the room, and was thinking that it was a very large piece of pottery. It has the classic ridges that look like the work was being smoothed out. I pictured a man with an enormous lump of clay sitting at a pottery wheel and working for hours to make the smooth edges perfect.

However, after further research, I found out that the chair is made using a process called “rotational molding.” Plastic beads are melted into a rotating mold. It is for this reason that the texture seems like pottery. 

Then I thought to myself: Why make a chair shaped like this? It seems a bit uncomfortable.

Heatherwick created a “geometric simplification” of a chair. One can balance, spin in a circle, or rock in it. Anyone in the chair is supposed to throw their weight around as if they are on a spinning top. Sitting in the chair mimics sitting in a giant bowl.

I couldn’t stand there looking at the chair for too long, or I would’ve sat in it. It doesn’t look very comfortable, but it seems like a great experience. This is a chair that I will always remember, and it will always fascinate me. 

Finally, after doing more research on Heatherwick himself, I found out that he is an extremely well-known designer. A garden bridge he designed just recently got approved to be built in London, and it will be the most expensive footbridge in the world. It seems as though London is going to get their own version of New York’s High Line Park.

If there’s one thing that researching Heatherwick taught me, it’s that design is absolutely an art, whether in furniture or in architecture.