The rocking chair is a bit démodé nowadays – and the monobloc is hard on its heels to follow that path. So, both may make a good pair. Here is five monobloc rocking chair takes by Peter Traag, Rebecca Ahlstedt, Mike & Maaike, Kate Ryan and flickr-user sidhefey.

So far, there was only a simple scan of my seminal essay available, that Christian Kracht and Eckhart Nickel published in their magazine DER FREUND in spring 2004. Thanks to the editors, here is a proper, searchable and printable file now. It´s in German, yes. A lousy scan of the English version, abridged and edited, from ART REVIEW is still there. (Click image to get the links.)

Last one in the small melt & burn series is a real-life shot from Santa Barbara/CA found here. Is it only me who gets the impression this thing unintentionally created by a fire in a nursing school looks most impressive compared to the more artistic works in recent posts?

Here goes more melt & burn plastic chair glory.. I was much surprised to find the humble monobloc in one of Berlin´s most upmarket shopping venues, the I.M.Pei-designed Quartier 206. For the summer sale weeks the basement “Cabinet” store´s windows come with molten and twisted plastic furniture in mint and black, a befitting statement after the incredibly hot summer we saw this year. Another photo after the click.

One of the most electrifying results of an afternoon´s frantic page viewing across the all encompassing archive of “form” was the très 1990s above advert by Frog Design for a (semi-?) monobloc they did for Jardin in 1991, during the very heydays of the monobloc plastic chair. I am not even sure, if this design ever went into mass-production, since I never ever saw it anywhere else. Frog back then was however THE design firm that you may translate in today´s Jonathan Ive and Ideo combined. I reckoned this was a must-share. Click for links and additional mumblings plus a bigger and better view of the somewhat disappointing scan.