Jasper Morrison

According to Jasper Morrison : take a seat !, Thinking Man’s Chair, dated 1986 by MAD Paris, began his work with Cappellini and used structural elements.^2,4,5

According to ULAN Full Record Display (Getty Research), morrison is listed as an artist in the MoMA records and the Getty ULAN.¹ According to Jasper Morrison : take a seat !, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs presented a selection of 21 Morrison seats in its exhibition Jasper Morrison: Take a Seat!⁴ According to Jasper Morrison : take a seat !, the Thinking Man's Chair originated in the mid-1980s, influenced by an antique chair cushion being repaired.^4,5

According to Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, morrison designed the Sim chair for Vitra in 1999.⁴ According to Les Arts Décoratifs (MAD Paris), morrison designed the Basel Chair for Vitra in 2008.⁴ According to Jasper Morrison : take a seat !, in 1998 he designed seats for Le Corbusier’s Couvent de la Tourette.⁴

MAD Paris says most of his seats are issued by major European or Japanese publishers, with some one-off commissions.⁴ According to designboom | architecture & design magazine, Morrison's All Plastic Chair for Vitra received a 2016 Salone del Mobile award for chair design.⁶ According to designboom | architecture & design magazine, a Vitra collection presented in 2016 included Morrison's All Plastic Chair and Soft Modular Sofa.⁶

According to designboom | architecture & design magazine, the 2016 Vitra presentation also included Morrison's Occasional Lounge Chair and Occasional Low Tables.⁶ Designboom reports that the All Plastic Chair's flattened frame elements are cast in a single piece.⁶ According to designboom | architecture & design magazine, Sheridan Coakley's SCP first manufactured Morrison's designs professionally in 1986.⁷

According to designboom | architecture & design magazine, Morrison's Handlebar Table dates to 1982 and uses bicycle handlebars among its components.⁷ According to designboom | architecture & design magazine, Early objects include the 1982 Handlebar Table, 1983 Laboratory Light, 1984 Flowerpot Table, and 1985 Wing-nut Chair.⁷ According to designboom | architecture & design magazine, Morrison's Laboratory Light, dated 1983, appeared in a Berlin exhibition organized with Andreas Brandolini and Joachim Stanitzek in summer 1984.⁷ According to designboom | architecture & design magazine, his Laboratory Light (1983) was built from a laboratory retort stand, clamp, plastic funnel, and rubber tubing.⁷

MAD Paris states that Morrison's work has been relatively little seen by the French general public in recent years.⁴ According to Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, a museum exhibition describes the chair as the type of object that has most interested Morrison.⁴ MAD Paris says the chair is the typology that has interested him most in a prolific career.⁴

According to Les Arts Décoratifs (MAD Paris), Morrison's Pipe I chair for Magis (2008) is described as inspired by Hans Coray's chair.⁴ According to Musée des Arts Décoratifs, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs compares Morrison's Sim chair with David Rowland's stacking chairs.⁴ Designboom reports that the Flowerpot Table prototype used stacked flowerpots as its base.⁷

Morrison said that passing stacked flower pots outside a Berlin hardware shop suggested the Flowerpot Table base.⁷ According to Wallpaper, Wallpaper describes the Thinking Man's Chair as having curved metal slats, tubular elements, and small round tables at the ends of its arms.⁵ Giulio Cappellini says seeing Thinking Man’s Chair led him to Morrison’s studio and a collaboration of more than 30 years.⁵

According to Jasper Morrison, he recalls a grandfather’s Scandinavian-style room and a Dieter Rams–Hans Gugelot Braun record player as formative.^3,8 Morrison says he seeks to improve the atmosphere of everyday built environments through design.⁸ According to The Minimalist, “I think luxury was invented for people with no better way of enjoying life than feeling superior to others”.⁸

According to Royal Designers for Industry, Royal Designers for Industry calls him a leading designer of furniture, lighting, electrical products, and tableware.² According to Royal Designers for Industry, “Having set up his Office for Design in London in 1986, he made his name with the Thinking Man’s Chair for Cappellini, the 1144 door handle for FSB…”.²