6 March 2014

Austere, practical, functional. The H Stool, of which several versions are available, allowing it be used as a table and small container as well, is a good example of the trend that has been defined in recent years as “retro-future.” In fact it harks back to a period in the past, that of the birth of industrial design of which, for example, Le Corbusier spoke in his famous essay on the decorative arts (1925), at a time when the term design was not in current use in its modern sense and in order to find intelligently made objects that matched their function you had to turn to catalogues of office or hospital furniture: there, amongst filing cabinets and bureaus, it was possible to discern the traces of forms conceived on the basis of the function they had to perform and free from virtuoso displays of craftsmanship; objects whose use value coincided with their exchange value. Today the H Stool, designed in the 1930s by Xavier Pauchard, has the flavor of a great classic, lightened up by a bold use of color, which makes us think back with nostalgia to the time when it all began or ahead with hope to what might be done again in the future. Manufacturer: Tolix.