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Pair of ION Chairs by Gideon Kramer

Creator: Gideon Kramer
Offered by: CP Lighting

Description
Pair of Gideon Kramer ION Chairs originally designed for the Space Needle restaurant, Seattle Worlds Fair 1962. One of these chairs retains the reminents of an original manufacturers sticker from the American Desk Co of Texas, indicating that the production date for this pair was 1965 or later and not from Kramer's earlier production for his own ION Corporation.

Very good condition with some scratches and blemishes from use and age. The chromed steel bases have pock marks and some rust due to age. There was also a connecting pipe on each at some point that had been cut off -- see photo. Possibly these were originally combined for public or lobby seating. Apparently there were numerous variations made over the years that the ION was in production.

The following is excerpt from a 2009 essay on HistoryLink.org

Kramer's probable greatest claim to fame was his famous and award-winning ION chair. An icon of mid-century modern furniture design, the ultra-ergonomic chair was a result of his philosophic approach to design. As Kramer told The Seattle Times in 1966, the design came about because he simply viewed the act of sitting as a "dynamic rather than static condition."

By 1947 Kramer's remarkable ION chairs began to gain serious attention. New York's Museum of Modern Art included one in its Fourteen Americans exhibit and also acquired some for their children's section. Years passed and Kramer got involved in many other projects, but when planning began for Seattle's Century 21 World's Fair of 1962, he was ready with an improved version -- one whose sleek and minimalist lines were in perfect sync with the futuristic zeitgeist of that period. Anyone who visited the fair's Space Needle Restaurant would likely have been tickled to have a seat in the ION units that looked and felt like something designed for NASA space travel.

Kramer's use of new shapes and advanced materials -- a smooth molded fiberglass shell set upon a chromed metal base -- was at once purposeful, impressive, and incredibly complex. "The engineering concept of this chair," he wrote, "was so unique that it formed the basis for a mechanical patent" (Kramer, 1999). One patent application revealed the technological challenges behind such a chair, stating that it was an "L-shaped, molded plastic shell comprising a seat portion and a back portion, both joined by an integral concavoconvex nonflanged waist portion [which] is provided with stiffening structure medial of the waist portion" (Molded Chair Patent 3583759).

Vastly more comfortable than described on paper, the ION chair met with such a positive critical response -- Interiors magazine described it as "spine-pampering" in a feature article and the Akron Museum included one in their Why is an Object exhibit – that Kramer founded the ION Corporation to manufacture and market them. Then in 1965, rights to produce the chairs were sold to the American Desk Corporation in Texas, and design configurations evolved.

More Information

Documentation:	Makers Label/Invoice
Notes:	one chair has partial label from American Desk Co of Texas
Origin:	United States
Period:	1950-1979
Materials:	Chromed steel base, fiberglass seat
Condition:	Good. Very good condition with some scratches and blemishes from use and age. The chromed steel bases have pock marks and some rust due to age. There was also a connecting pipe on each at some point that had been cut off -- see photo.
Creation Date:	1962
Number of Pieces:	2-3
Styles / Movements:	Modern, Mid Century, Minimalist
Lead Time:	Ready to Ship
Incollect Reference #:	764624