Japanese Postmodernism deep dive
/No country was without a postmodernism movement and today, we are looking into a Japanese designed and manufactured folding chair. At first glance, it represents the standard directors chair look. I instantly knew it had to collapse. It took a second, but I figured it out. By pulling up on the chair, the tubes began to slide and the sides started to come together as it collapsed. It’s a cool design that allows the chair to fold flat height-wise and can be tucked into a closet in seconds. The tubular chrome structure is not uncommon as many of the postmodernists enjoyed working with it. This chair was designed to be mass produced.
There is a cool patented feature which tells us more about the way the seat upholstery attaches. Let’s deep dive! My chair is missing it’s label, but it did not take long to find a labelled version on web archives.
The tag only states: utida x chair, made in japan
This chair gets attributed to Shigeru Uchida. I deep dove and found a patent for the way the seat attaches to the frame! It is dated 1974 (USA patent anyway). Note that the patent is for inventors listed Suekichi Uchida and Aza Gonishi and associated company is Uchida Sharyo Co. Inc. of Nagoya-shi, Japan. Here’s a look at the patent.
Note the ‘inventors’ and company listed.
A second search took me to the patent for this chair!
PATENT FOR THE X CHAIR!
So Shigeru Uchida. I have found no ties to him and Suekichi at this point. No bio mentions a spouse (assuming Suekichi is female). His known designs are quite sleek and definitely look more high end than this chair. I did find another folding chair tagged the X-7 Uchida Syaryo Made in Japan. I assume this is same company noted in patent. I do believe like any foreign language, the translation gets muddled! Here’s look at the chair which folds differently but has a similar tubular construction. It does not have a seat attached like the above patent.
X-7 Chair - thanks to etsy seller for pics.
I’ll add a few more patents from Suekichi as these chairs turn up as well and figure I’d put them here for the researchers who find me.
And here is the Z chair in the wild (thanks bay seller!), this iteration does not have the detachable rocker pieces.
We can conclude that the UCHIDA Z Chair tag is Suekichi Uchida!
Also note, another name that gets tagged with Uchida is Takeshi Nii. At no point have I found any link to this company or to Suekichi Uchida! Nii also helped design a chair around 1970 called the Nychair X and it looks similar so you need to look very closely at the details to identify. Nychair’s are still being made and can be bought new. I also am adding one patent I found for Takeshi Nii for a similar folding chair with a director chair look which shows company info, etc and pic of the chair on the Nychair website.
And what about Shigeru? Well here is a look at a chair by him and it’s night and day! This guy was HIGH END and not utilitarian! Have a look at this sexy chair! Also note there is much more to Shigeru than chairs! Look him up as there is info on him available. Thanks for checking out my ramblings!
My friend just said to me, why do you waste your time on the blog? I said, spreading facts and info and putting it out there in the cyber world makes me happy. There are so many dealers adding to the misinformation that even if one person finds my blog and sees the errors in their false attributions, I have done good in the world. ;). THANKS SO MUCH for tuning in! XO Malissa
