CURRY MANGO

Basic information

Project Title

CURRY MANGO

Full project title

CURRY MANGO FOLDABLE ARMCHAIR

Project Description

The Quechua folding armchair has become the symbol of the urban nomad in France.This affordable object represents a new way of taking over the street.
Our intention was to reinterpret it by taking inspiration from it and hybridizing it with the Wassily armchair designed by Marcel Breuer during his studies at the Bauhaus. This led to a new folding chair that represents the essence of the Hall (our urban environnement) Haus (design) organisation and a new vision in design field.

Project Region

Vaujours, France

EU Programme or fund

Description of the project

Summary

“Curry Mango”

The Quechua folding armchair has become the symbol of the urban nomad.

This affordable object represents a new way of taking over the street.
We wanted to reinterpret it by taking inspiration from it and hybridizing it with the Wasilly armchair designed by Marcel Breuer during his studies at the Bauhaus. The result is "Curry Mango", a new folding armchair that represents the essence of the hall haus. We are an organisation of four designers who advocate a creative approach based on a journey between our environnement (hall) and the designer's house/space/universe (haus, name which also comes from the bauhaus which inspires us a lot).

The Quechua, like the Wassily, is the culmination of the Bauhaus in terms of standardisation, but 70 years later with maximum cost reduction. With this chair, we want to create a bridge between the two by using digital technology and revisiting the notion of standard.

Curry Mango is an oak and bull leather armchair that resembles the silhouette of the Quechua armchair but in its materials is in the same range as the Wassily. Its folding system is unique and was developed by us. It was possible to make a copy as part of the "À l'Oeuvre" residency of the Lafayette Anticipations Foundation, which we won in September 2020. It was finalised last May and we created an exhibition which is still ongoing at Lafayette Anticipations in Paris.

Key objectives for sustainability

The chair was entirely made in France with sustainable and natural materials. We worked with the Lafayette Anticipations Foundation and a Parisian leather workshop which called Beynat & Janniaux (one of the few remaining in the city). Our desire for the future is to produce it locally for ethical, eco-responsible and quality reasons. The oak is French, machined in France and the leather is traced and made in France.

Key objectives for aesthetics and quality

Curry Mango is an object that raises questions because it brings together two diametrically opposed universes. In terms of aesthetics, it immediately brings to mind the Quechua armchair, but in the materials it uses, it refers to the design of the 1930s. The fluid shape, created by digital milling, shows that it is part of today's design. All this richness of reference makes this chair a surprising, new and universal object and that is what we are looking for.

A feeling of uncertainty arises when we see it because the folding evokes outdoor use but the wood and leather evoke indoor use. This ambivalence produces a new experience for us even before use.

The yellow-orange colour was chosen in relation to the name we gave and to the colour yellow, the symbol of our studio. We also think it goes well with the colour of the oak.

We chose bull leather because it is grained and with folding it lives very well. The cracks in the leather make it easier to fold, and you don't notice the wear and tear it creates. The Beynat & Janniaux workshop, which made the garment, cut out the parts with a digital cutter and assembled them with stitching and hand stitching.

In our folding system, we worked on joints with legs that join at 45° and are caught between rings that we designed like jewellery. They are made of laser-cut stainless steel. This detail places the chair in the world of luxury, which we see as synonymous with quality in terms of durability and finish.

Key objectives for inclusion

hall haus is an organisation of designers from working class backgrounds and the name we have chosen reflects our desire to go back and forth between our urban, multi-cultural environment and the design world we reached through our studies at ENSCI-Les Ateliers. In essence, we want to make design accessible to everyone by using codes that speak to everyone in each of our projects. For the armchair we have merged a popular object with a collector's item. In this way we reach a wide spectrum of people and everyone can appropriate this object.

Results in relation to category

The Curry Mango armchair attracted the Lafayette Anticipations Foundation from the beginning of its conception, as it was the director herself who suggested that we create an exhibition around this object in the foundation's boutique. She immediately thought that this product was interesting from the point of view of the approach and that it would be of interest to the shop's customers. Since the start of the exhibition on 14 May, many people have asked us if we were selling this chair.

We have been contacted by the Adidas Paris offices because they want to furnish their spaces with the Curry Mango armchair and several collectors have also expressed their desire to acquire it.

How Citizens benefit

During the exhibition many people are surprised by this chair because of the codes it contains. They ask themselves if they would use this chair inside or outside, in what context. It's a project that we didn't develop with outsiders but we started from the street and the behaviour of a group. Young people who go outside and invade the public space with Quechua chairs. This has had a considerable impact on the project because it was born from that, we ourselves worked with these chairs, outside in the summer before we had offices.