The new BassamFellows Brutus chair, launching in Milan in 2020, has its roots in the powerful Modernist vernacular of Perriand and Jeanneret, but is softer and visually lighter. It emphasizes certain sculptural elements, elevating visual aspects evident in much Brutalist design, but updated with organic smoothness. It is more “cut” than it is “built”, and its shape looks like it has been weathered naturally and then manipulated – the silhouette of the back suggests a giant shell that has been machined to create a striking squared-off hole in the centre.
The back and seat look like a single sculptural element, the horizontal and vertical planes meeting with pleasing curves. The Vienna caning of the seat in some examples of the chair (others are upholstered with suspension webbing) draws a line back to 1950s Chandigarh, and contributes to the visual and physical lightness of the object. Like Jeanneret’s work in India, the Brutus chair is something strong and solid, but in this case, perspective is everything – the legs are elliptical, tapering down from the seat to the floor, and shaped like a rounded shark’s fin, so they look broad from one angle, and remarkably thin from another. As with the BassamFellows Tractor Stool, the legs are inserted directly into the seat with a large tenon.
![Book Flatlay Cover Front Transparent Trio[1]](https://d31dpzy4bseog7.cloudfront.net/media/2024/06/07080212/Book_Flatlay_Cover_Front_Transparent_Trio1.png)
