[ Robert Stadler ] Royèroid Sofa and Armchair

Paris-based designer Robert Stadler has created the Royèroid sofa and armchair. The collection was recently exhibited at the Carpenters Workshop Gallery booth during the Design Miami/Basel show in Basel, Switzerland.

Why, as a designer, focus on the decorator Jean Royère? ?His anachronistic levity and his anticipation of freer forms in our habitat make his merits beyond question. The ‘Ours Polaire’ series in particular (like Noguchi’s ‘Free form sofa’) no longer appear as composite objects made in the manner of traditional furniture. Royère sought to unify the various elements of a seat to form a more abstract whole. He managed to create useful sculptures with irresistible ergonomics. With the series ‘Royèroid’ I pay tribute to the ‘Ours Polaire’ while continuing this quest for abstraction. The pieces are presented as monoliths thanks to a complex pattern enveloping them in the manner of a computer-generated 3D-mesh (although they are entirely handmade). The details of the whole are flattened as if a skin had been stretched around the previously separate elements. Diamond-shaped areas in different colours correspond to the front armrests and the seat cushion of the original. They appear as ghostly reflections of areas which, in Royère, required seams or the creation of separate elements. The fabric used for the ‘Royèroids’ has also been selected with reference to the ‘Ours Polaire’ series for which Royère used a hairy and very soft textile. It is much more flush than the original, with a suede-like touch which has the same magnetic attraction on its user.


from  contemporist