At a Q&A session at SVA last week New York Times chief architecture critic Michael Kimmelman talked about his beliefs, his writing, and the role of the architecture critic. He was voluble and charming (think Dustin Hoffman in Kramer vs. Kramer), and got things started by proclaiming, joyously, “I don’t care about criticism." We were gathered in a small conference room lined with bookshelves and filled with rows of grey Aeron chairs. Just as Kimmelman took his seat up front, a woman in back cried out in alarm; she was sliding out of hers, which was tilting and spinning precariously. The gentleman sitting next to her offered a steadying hand and explained, calmly, "Don’t worry. The chair is supposed to do that.”
The Aeron chair has become a high design cliche. Too often it’s specified to communicate fabulous taste, without regard for its proportions or dimensions. At a corporate design office where I once worked the entire floor was fit-out with grey felt carpet, long black counters, and black Aerons to dazzle potential clients. The chairs have sophisticated ergonomics, with knobs at the back and bottom to adjust the tension and height. Yet mine always felt wrong, as if it been designed for a creature several times my girth. And I never felt sheltered by the chair, as I do inside that other great corporate office chair cliche, the Eames. Instead I felt as if my Aeron was about to catapult me directly into my (chic, flat, black) computer screen. Along with the horrid office coffee, that chair kept me in a continual state of over-alertness. In addition, the Aeron takes up more space than you think – it’s high and wide. At the Kimmelman event I couldn’t see beyond the chair in front of me and barely found room to set my bags on the floor. Though set out neatly, the chairs were twisted this way and that, and gave the room a strong sense of disorder. These chairs don’t work in groups, they don’t work in small spaces, and they don’t work for some body types. Have the designers specifying them spent time in them?