One of the U.K.’s most influential midcentury furniture designers, the late Robin Day has been fêted across Britain this spring and summer in recognition of the centenary of his birth this year. The latest nod to the designer’s lasting achievements is the release of a poster by the Robin and Lucienne Day Foundation, a striking graphic homage to 100 of his original creations.
Designed by Studio Fernando Gutierrez and distributed by the London-based design shop twentytwentyone, the poster explores some seven decades of Day’s life, on both personal and professional levels, through photographs drawn from the Robin and Lucienne Day Foundation’s archives. Many of the images derive from Robin Day’s personal design-photography collection and have never before been published.
After winning the 1948 International Competition for the Design of Low-Cost Furniture at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, with designs for multipurpose storage units made from molded plywood (in collaboration with Clive Latimer), Day went on to work extensively with the British manufacturer Hille. One of his iconic designs for the brand, the ground-breaking 1963 Polypropylene stackable chair, became a sensation the world over for its streamlined and cost-effective approach to mass-market contemporary seating. Other highlights of Day’s portfolio include the metal Toro bench, designed for stations of the London Underground, and his seating for the Barbican Arts Center.
Later this autumn, Day’s timeless aesthetic will once more be heralded, with an exhibition during the London Design Festival at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The show, which opens on September 19, will focus specifically on Day’s use of wood in his designs and will feature an installation by Assemble, the young, Turner Prize–nominated architecture studio.
Robin Day 100 Designs poster; $19. twentytwentyoneom
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