Let the sun shine on Schultz
Ever hopeful here at Aram Store of the sun making a concerted effort this year, we have recently taken delivery of a timeless and enduring collection of furniture that no sophisticated garden should be without.
Richard Schultz (b. 1926) joined Knoll Associates in 1951 to work with Harry Bertoia, after studying at Iowa State University and the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. In 1960, he designed the award winning ‘Petal’ Collection of tables to accompany the Bertoia Chairs designed by Harry Bertoia for Knoll. The table tops are formed of eight individual petals and mounted on a simple, cast aluminium ‘spider-like’ pedestal base. The design was inspired by Queen Anne’s Lace, a weed that grows in Pennsylvania (where Schultz was sent to work with Bertoia in the autumn of 1951 and where Richard Schultz Designs was eventually founded in 1992), as each cluster of flowers is supported by its own stem.
By making a table in this way, there is no need for a ring support and each petal is independent, allowing the table top to expand and contract with the varying outdoor elements. The petals are made of machined, high-density polyurethane supported by a powder coated, cast aluminium base. The Petal Collection was introduced by Knoll in Los Angeles in 1960 and was immediately accepted into the MoMA Design Collection.
Following the success of the Petal Collection, Florence Knoll made a request of Richard Shultz: “you have to make some decent outdoor furniture, something that is made of materials that won’t rust and corrode”. Knoll had taken Bertoia Chairs to her new ocean-front home in Florida but they did not withstand the salt-air. This challenge appealed to Schultz and in October 1962, he began work on an aluminium based outdoor group of furniture. He experimented with button connectors for the seat slings and plastic beading around the table tops but he eventually devised concealed connections which made the chairs more elegant.
In April 1963, Florence Knoll approved his proposed designs and after a three year development period, the 1966 Collection of furniture was launched in March of that year. Schultz said of the collection: “most outdoor furniture in those days was designed to look as if it was designed before the French Revolution, with stamped out metal, bunches of flowers and leaves; it was very much period-looking furniture. This was the first outdoor furniture that enthusiasts of modern design could say ‘This is a breath of fresh air’.”
The 1966 Collection consists of dining chairs, lounge chairs, low and high tables and two chaise longue designs – Adjustable and Contour. The frames on each piece are manufactured using cast and extruded aluminium finished with a weather resistant, polyester powder coating. The seats of the chairs and chaise longues are made of a woven, vinyl coated, polyester mesh and hemmed in by solid, pure vinyl, straps. The table tops, formed of lightly convexed sheet-steel and finished with a white porcelain enamel, are slightly set back from the frame leaving a thin gap for rainwater to drain through. The 1966 Collection was also taken into the MoMA Design Collection and bestowed an International Design Award A.I.D. in 1967.
Please visit the Store on Drury Lane to experience both the Petal and 1966 Collection for yourselves.
Myles Brown