Wallpaper* and Ercol Raise Colorful Arch for London Design Festival

One of the exhibits I've been anticipating from the London Design Festival this year is the chair arch by Martino Gamper for Ercol and Wallpaper* magazine.  It's featured in the October issue of Wallpaper* that's out now. 

Back in 1877, the original chair arch concept came to fruition through the efforts of the Chair Manufacturers Association in England (Wycombe to be exact).  They organized 400 chairs in the form of an arch.  Building an arch to commemorate a special event or celebration has been a tradition in Great Britain for centuries, though chair arches began with this one in 1877 and only a few were ever designed and built.

The mother of all chair arches in 1877 (source)

 According to the Wycombe District Council, "at the bottom were common Windsor and cane-seated chairs, rising with the ascent of the arch through drawing-room, lounge, library, reading, rocking and other seats, to the state chair of the Mayor, covered with red velvet and bearing the gilded crest of the borough."  The 2009 Chair Arch is a stark contradiction to the original in many ways. 

The original was built for the Queen with international flags posted along it's curve, huge in scale, hierarchical in design, and built to be seen (not touched).  Nonetheless, it was a cool idea that spurred chair arches in the following years.

The colorful chair arch of Martino Gamper invites interaction.  (source)

Gampers chair arch is sort of the opposite.  It's designed with human scale and interaction in mind, it's made of one chair design that may symbolize equality, and the only flag it's summoning is the rainbow flag.  Read along with Ercol's account of Martino's process on their blog.

What a difference 132 years can make.  Which one would you rather see in person?