UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Marcus Shaffer, associate professor in Penn State’s Department of Architecture, has made and donated a chair designed by award-winning designer Enzo Mari called Sedia 1 to Penn State University Libraries’ Iconic Modern Chair Collection. The collection, found in the Architecture and Landscape Architecture Library in the Stuckeman Family Building on Penn State’s University Park campus, supports the University Libraries’ 2020–2025 strategic plan goal of advancing University research by diversifying and maximizing library materials through a broader concept of library collections.
Henry Pisciotta, arts and architecture librarian and head of the Architecture and Landscape Architecture Library, said collecting chairs as design examples is another way the University Libraries can serve teaching with shared resources.
“The purpose of starting the chair collection a couple of years ago was to support experiential learning,” Pisciotta said. “Professor Shaffer’s idea of adding the Mari chair is brilliant because the whole idea of that design was for people to learn by doing. So, now it’s my favorite chair in the group of nine we have collected.”
Mari was an industrial designer who worked with several major furniture manufacturers but also believed that making your own furniture was an important form of education. He designed Sedia 1 as a set of instructions that anyone could use to make a comfortable chair from common lumber and nails. Shaffer built his version from a single 20-foot pine board purchased from a home improvement store.
The Architecture and Landscape Architecture Library also has acquired Mari’s book “Autoprogettazione?,” which contains instructions for the chair and many other furnishings. In addition, library employees have prepared an educational handout with visual instructions for making the Sedia 1 chair so that students and other visitors can build their own.
Previously, Shaffer used the Iconic Modern Chair Collection’s Frank Gehry chair constructed from cardboard as part of his instruction to first-year students. He required them to sit in the Gehry chair before they completed their own cardboard chair designs.
Along with the donated chair, Shaffer provided a written appreciation for Mari’s work and why it is relevant for education today. An excerpt notes:
“The so-called humility in the Sedia 1 design (people are tricked by the simple form and the use of common/plain materials) masks Mari’s mastery as a designer — the extreme comfort in the angled back rest and seat, the assured stability in the construction that a sitter can feel under their legs, the elegance expressed in the thickness of the wood parts, the difficulty in putting a nail into pine (so prone to splitting). Mari — ever the agitator — sets us up to discover its inherent complexity, difficulties, and risk as we build, as we have already committed ourselves to making. This is the cleverness in his generosity — ‘Autoprogettazione?,’ easily assumed to be mere ‘instructions’ is actually a thorough seminar and workshop (of mind/of hand) on good design, and we are reminded of its impact every time we sit in the Sedia 1.”
Art history faculty member Craig Zabel initiated the Iconic Modern Chair Collection, purchasing seven chairs and two stools from the 1890s to the 1970s designed by internationally recognized modern architects and furniture designers, using grant funds he was awarded after receiving the Penn State Teaching Fellow Award in 2016.
Library visitors are encouraged to visit and sit in the chairs and stools in the collection during the Architecture and Landscape Architecture Library’s operating hours. The library is one of five University Libraries locations on the University Park campus. The University Libraries has locations on all Penn State campuses. The Department of Architecture is part of the Stuckeman School in Penn State’s College of Arts and Architecture.