Jan Plecháč: Icons

(jiří macek) For his AAAD diploma work entitled Icons, Jan Plecháč tore into the world classics only with the help of wire in his hand with the considerable task of conjuring the spirits and endowing them with new life. The stories that he managed to create with wire on a contour line represent a fascinating study of the history of design and a powerful collection of outdoor seating furniture.

“The Icons seating furniture pieces are an attempt to wipe the line between interior and exterior furniture, plus interior and exterior as such. It is an attempt to find stories of iconic forms in new contexts of a mentally contrasting environment. It is about ideas of the relationship between function and form,” explains Jan Plecháč from the studio of Jiří Pelc (with Radim Babák as Assistant).

“When transforming the existing furniture into a light and a dematerialized structure of exterior furniture, I used a contour line as a tool. A graphic shortcut. Thus, the seating set was created by copying famous icons of world design, which gradually turned into real wire furniture. The selection of individual pieces was determined by several priorities. The first and most essential one was how much a certain object or style is known among the public. For this reason, my number one choice was the Louis chair, i.e. the most famous icon whose typical curves represented a very rewarding theme for wire lines. On the contrary, the Kubus chair by Josef Hoffmann enchanted me with its geometry. I wanted to achieve the maximum possible contrast between the material model and the ephemeral wire interpretation. The wire version emphasized the geometrical and graphic accuracy of the upholstered armchair. I chose the Red and Blue chair by architect Rittweld as a contrast to the two previous armchairs. As for the Walnut Stool by the Eames, I tried to transfer rotational shapes into the wire lines.
The entire selection proceeded along the time axis. Thus, I wanted to complete the set with something contemporary. I decided for a very unusual chair – the Fatboy chair – because I tried to pick various furniture pieces throughout the process that would differ in material, structure, etc. This meant transforming the amorphous and ever-changing shape into the individual curves of the wire structure. My diploma work focuses on the attempt to evoke new emotions by means of old memories, on the clash of clearly defined forms and natural contingencies, and on their consonancy.”

This work is very beautiful indeed.

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