Natural Qualities of Terracotta Shine in this Botanical-Inspired Seating | Flower Power

FDT Bureau

As part of NYCxDesign, The Future Perfect, a gallery in New York, showcased an exhibition of robust terracotta seats created by American designer Chris Wolston. The collection, known as Flower Power, features 13 distinct chairs and benches with exaggerated botanical shapes, intended to highlight the craftsmanship and inherent natural qualities of the material. Know more about it on FURNITURE DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY (FDT).

Wolston employed pre-Columbian craft techniques and molds of real flowers to complete the finished pieces. He chose terracotta as it is often undervalued and perceived as a lesser material in ceramics. Wolston expressed his deep fascination with terracotta as a material derived directly from the earth, and he wanted to push its boundaries to accentuate the craftsmanship involved.

The collection has been manufactured in Wolston’s ceramics studio in Medellin, Colombia, utilizing clay sourced from a mountain near Bogota, the country’s capital. Unlike standardized clay with fixed ingredient ratios, Wolston found the natural earth clay to be more unpredictable, requiring trial and error to determine firing and construction methods that would prevent cracking.

The chair’s base structure is hollow, except for the seat, which is reinforced internally, akin to the arches of an aqueduct. Wolston adorned the chairs with various floral motifs, sometimes incorporating small decorations made from molds of real flowers and plants from his own garden. He also hand-built large, cartoonish flowers and vines to serve as structural elements such as legs and arms. The backrest of the Flower Chair resembles a massive daisy, referencing its historical use as a pacifist symbol during the 1960s.

To achieve a shiny surface when the seats are not adorned with press-molded flowers, Wolston employed a pre-Columbian finishing technique. This involved burnishing the drying ceramic with a polishing stone, sealing the surface and creating a visually intriguing finish. He also drew inspiration from pre-Columbian ceramics housed in the archive at the University of Antioquia in Medellin, which served as a valuable resource for learning about working techniques with the material.

Each of the pieces takes up to three months to dry before undergoing a meticulous firing process. According to Wolston, Flower Power is a nod to the 60s and the use of flowers and inanimate objects for social protest. He drew inspiration from Allen Ginsberg, a Beat poet who believed that presenting flowers and objects from everyday life in a different context could prompt people to pause and reconsider their significance.

Image credit: Joseph Kramm, David Sierra and Radha Leon