He designed the Coconut Chair eight years before it had that name. Then the story of how it got made turned out to have a story of its own.
In this solo episode, we dig into A.J. Donahue: Harvard trained under Gropius and Breuer, recruited to teach architecture in Winnipeg, and for a while, the best modernist architect Manitoba ever produced. He also, quietly, designed one of the most recognizable mid-century chairs in North America. Except history gave the credit to George Nelson and Herman Miller instead.
We get into the legend that's followed this chair for decades: 200 prototypes, hand built by architecture students in Donahue's own basement. Then we pull it apart, piece by piece, using the archival research that suggests the real story ran through a furniture factory in Montreal. Plus: the world's first plastic chair, an unproven patent, and one very confusing sketch Donahue drew from memory forty five years later.
A story about a brilliant, difficult man, a beautiful chair, and how design history actually gets written.
Research for this episode provided by:
WPGARCH