Don Chadwick Explained

Donald "Don" T. Chadwick^[1] (born 1936) is an American industrial designer specializing in office seating.

Early life

He was born in Los Angeles and developed an interest in furniture making from his grandfather, a cabinetmaker.^[2] He studied design at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Career

He worked for architect Victor Gruen, and in 1964 founded his own practice. As a young designer Chadwick gained recognition for his entries in the Pasadena Art Museum's California Design exhibitions.^[3] His 1968 prototype for cardboard furniture predates the easy edges cardboard furniture by Frank Gehry. He has designed the Chadwick modular seating system (1974) and, in cooperation with Bill Stumpf, the Equa 1 (1984) and the Aeron chair (1994), all for Herman Miller.^{[4] [5]} Among his recent designs is the Chadwick chair and Spark chair for Knoll, and Ballo for Human Scale.

Publications

• Friedman, Mildred, Ed. A Serious Chair — Design Quarterly 126. Minneapolis and Cambridge: The Walker Art Center and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1984.
• Olivares, Jonathan, Ed. Don Chadwick Photography 1961-2005. Barcelona: Apartamento Publishing S.L., 2019
• Amy Auscherman, Sam Gawe, Leon Ransmeier, Eds. "Ergon Chairs 1976" in Herman Miller: A Way of Living. London: Phaidon Press, 2019. 460-481

Awards

• I.D. magazine Award for Design Excellence, 1970, 1971, 1973, 1974
• ASID Award for Ergon seating, 1976
• The Governor's Award, Design Michigan Exhibition, 1977
• I.D. magazine "Designer of the 70s", 1979
• IBD and IDSA awards for casegoods, 1980
• IBD Gold Award for Equa chair, 1984
• IBD Gold Award for Ethospace interiors, 1985
• Time magazine, design: "Best of the Decade" for Equa chair, 1990
• BusinessWeek magazine and Industrial Designers Society of America awarded Design of the Decade to the Aeron chair, 2000
• National Design Awards, Product Design winner, 2006

Further reading

• Book: Design of the 20th Century. Charlotte. Fiell. Peter. Fiell. Taschen. Köln. 25th anniversary. 2005. 155. 9783822840788. 809539744.

Notes and References

1. Web site: The Collection | Donald T. Chadwick, William Stumpf. Aeron Office Chair. 1992 . MoMA . 2014-06-04.
2. Web site: HKDI and Herman Miller Presents: A series of lectures by design leaders . 2011-09-26 . 2011-09-26 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110926231829/http://reach.hermanmillerasia.com/HermanMillerPresents . dead .
3. Book: Auscherman, Amy. Herman Miller: A Way of Living . Phaidon. 2019. 9780714875217. London. 461.
4. Web site: Don Chadwick . . 2009-07-07 .
5. Web site: Industrial Designers Society of America . Industrial Designers Society of America . Ergon Chair (1976) . 2011-09-26 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20101206125210/http://idsa.org/content/ergon-chair-1976 . 2010-12-06 .