LA SILLA DEL GATEPAC: UN VIAJE COLECTIVO DE IDA Y VUELTA

Abstract

As a critical result of furniture valuation between 1880 and 1930, the GATEPAC group set a number of invariable parameters that conditioned the definition of modern furniture (honesty, consistency and function were the primary values), in line with the ideas advanced by significant architecture theorists at that time. In light of these three basic criteria, the GATEPAC group developed a view of modern furniture as being simple, lightweight, portable, hygienic and standard. In line with these criteria, the GATEPAC architects experimented with the production of a standard set of chairs between the late 1920s and 1936. These pieces evolved from steel to wood and wicker design - popular furniture. Although the established principles of modernity were retained in this development process, the forms and materials were transformed. It is in relation to the latter that progress may be read as a form of reversed evolution, whereby no longer required to be merely decorative and useless, furniture design was free to return to forms and materials of the popular domain.