Don Chadwick

Background

Donald "Don" Chadwick was born in Los Angeles in 1936 and took an early interest in furniture making from his grandfather, a cabinetmaker. He studied industrial design at UCLA in the mid-1950s, where a lecture by Charles and Ray Eames sharpened his focus on furniture. After working for architect Victor Gruen, he opened his own studio in Los Angeles in 1964.

Signature Style

Chadwick works from constraints and ergonomic elements such as tilt mechanisms, elastomeric materials and casters, and has long experimented with industrial processes like rotational moulding. His curiosity about materials and the way people sit runs through decades of office seating.

Notable Works

• Modular Seating (1974) for Herman Miller, relaunched in 2015
• Equa chair (1984) with Bill Stumpf
• Aeron Chair (1994) with Bill Stumpf, and its 2016 remastering
• Chadwick chair and Spark chair for Knoll; Ballo for Humanscale

Legacy

Aeron entered MoMA's permanent collection before it went into production and became the benchmark work chair. Chadwick taught at UCLA from 1976 to 1985 and continues to design from Southern California.