an essential history of monobloc plastic chairs
a lot of mistification has been published on
the origin of monobloc plastic chairs, wrong
research facts announced by design museum
curators and design historians.

the first all-plastic chair was designed by the
italian designer joe colombo in 1965. it was made
in 5 pieces - the backrest /seat monococque and
4 single legs.

then, in 1967 the first monobloc chair was invented.
‘selene’ by the italian designer vico magistretti,
made from just a single piece of 3 mm thick reglar
(fiberglass-reinforced polyester). magistretti resolved
the technical difficulties associated with the strenght
of the legs by configuring them in an 'S' shape.
designboom’s editor-in-chief, birgit lohmann,
collaborated as his personal design assistant for
15 years. he told her the story of how he got the
right idea: magistretti bought a plastic developing tray,
which he had seen in a german photolab. further
developments culminated in the exemplary project,
produced by artemide in 1969 and was reissued in
2002 by heller designs in ABS plastic.

at the same time, another structural one-piece
plastic chair was developed by danish designer
verner panton. it was a cantilever chair (with no
rear legs) made of luran-s plastic (acrylate-styrene-
acrylonitrile) and could be produced only in 1970s
with the development of injection- molding technology.

the very first mass-produced monoblocs
probably came from the french allibert group
or the US grossfillex group.

millions have been produced since their debut in
the early 1980s. every 70 seconds a monobloc
chair comes out from a single press. 220 °C hot
polypropylene is mashed through the extruder into
a mold. there are only fractions of a millimeter
slack between the two halfs of the mold that endure
a pressure of 1.000 tons.

early anonymous monoblocs cost around $60
each, but as more and more were manufactured,
the price dropped to less than $3. they are
manufactured in russia, taiwan, australia, mexico,
the united states, italy, france, germany, marocco,
turkey, israel and china, among other countries.
monoblocs are a universally accessible, mass-
manufactured object, landfill sites are stuffed with
them, and millions more are on their way.

design proliferation
since then many new monoblocs have been added,
designed by the well known protagonists of the
international design scene: ross lovegrove, karim rashid,
jasper morrison, and philippe starck to name but a few.
in this article we feature a few of anonymous projects of
monobloc re-uses and maverick anti-designs.

see more on monobloc plastic chairs -
the ‘monobloc project’ by by jens thiel
(where a few of these images are from)