Platz #1 – An the Winner is …
Congratulations to our First Place winner, the Crescent Chair by Bruce Hirschman. A big thank you goes out to Hirschman’s wife who told him about the contest after seeing it in the DWR Catalog.
Inspired by the natural shape of the cork, Hirschman kept his design to one material but employed many tools, including a jeweler’s saw, X-Acto knife, drill press, grinding burrs and belt sander. Figuring out how to shape cork was his biggest challenge. “It’s not the easiest of materials,” he said. “My process was the traditional sculpture method: just remove everything that is not the sculpture.”
The judges were drawn to the chair’s simplicity and beautiful shape. “I’ve never seen a chair like this,” Forbes said. “It’s so friendly, like a koala bear.” Petrie of Egg Collective praised the chair for its high level of craftsmanship, and DeRespinis noted that the chair “is as much about subtraction as it is about addition.”
A fountain-pen maker by trade, Hirschman is responsible for designing pens and precise machining. His favorite buildings include the Chrysler Building, Falling Water and Notre Dame Cathedral. He’s a huge fan of the Womb Chair by Eero Saarinen, and he owns an early Coconut Chair by George Nelson.
When we told Hirschman that he won, he responded: “Let’s see if my Powerball ticket for tonight has the same good fortune.” Unfortunately, that $564 million prize went to someone else, but he is the winner of a $1,000 DWR Gift Card.