Butterfly Stacking Chair by Karim Rashid for Magis of Italy
The Magis Butterfly Stacking Chair by Karim Rashid is available in 6 shiny colors. A perfect match for any chrome or aluminum framed table like the Magis Tango Round Table or the Tonelli Farniente Alto Tondo (high table). The Butterfly stacking chair has a chromium-plated steel tube frame and 2-part molded ABS plastic seat. The Butterfly chair truly delivers a classic retro charming look.
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Magis Butterfly Stacking Chair
Height 32.5"
Width 21.5"
Depth 21.7"
Seat Height 18.1"
Karim Rashid
Karim Rashid is an Industrial Designer. His perspective and clients are global and while considers himself more of a cultural provocateur, his work ranges from products to interiors, fashion, furniture, lighting, art, music and installations.
He received a bachelor of Industrial Design in Canada in 1982 and postgraduate studies in Italy as well as having worked in Milan for Rodolfo Bonetto in 1984. For seven years he was at KAN Industrial Design and co-designed Babel Fashion Collection for 6 years. In 1993, he opened his own studio in New York City.
His clients include Umbra, Issey Miyake, YSL, Prada, Nambe, Magis, Edra, Frighetto, Herman Miller, Sony, Foscarini, Artemide, Idée, Bozart, Shiseido, Davidoff, Giorgio Armani, Leonardo, Nienkamper, Yahoo, Zerodisegno, Copco, Method, Guzzini, and Danese, among others.
Karim has designed and produced over 1000 products during his career, winning numerous awards including ID Magazine's Annual Design Review 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000 for Design Distinctions, Bon Apetit's Designer of the Year 2003, National Association of Store Fixture Manufacturers for Best Retail Store Design 2003, 2002 International Interior Design Association Star Award, 2002 Industrial Design Excellence Awards, 2001 Canadian Design Hero Award, 1999 George Nelson Award, 1999 Philadelphia Museum of Art Collab Award, Daimler Chrysler Award 1999, Brooklyn Museum of Art Designer Award 1998. Karim's works are in the permanent collections of 14 Museums and published internationally. He exhibits art at Sandra Gering Gallery and Deitch Projects in New York. Karim was also a full-time associate Professor in Industrial Design for 10 years and writes for various design publications. His monograph ‘I Want to Change the World‘ (Rizzoli, 2001) is currently available, as well as the International Design Yearbook 18 which he edited for Calmann and King, and Abbeville, 2003 and he released two CD's available on Seattle boutique label, Neverstop.
Magis History
Magis is the brand that has given a novel twist to domestic design, building its identity on incorporating leading edge technology into mass production. Founded in 1976 in the bustling north eastern corner of Italy by a newcomer to the furniture business, Eugenio Perazza, Magis is today a giant international design laboratory that constantly puts itself to the test, seeking technological sophistication and employing a highly diversified workforce.
Magis seizes the day. It embraces the creativity of leading global designers (Richard Sapper, Jasper Morrison, Stefano Giovannoni, Marc Newson, James Irvine, Konstantin Grcic, Ron Arad, the Bouroullecs and many others) and channels it towards objects perched on the cutting edge. The company even earned kudos from the trendsetter's bible, Wallpaper, which placed Perazza on top of its list of "Ten who will change the way we live".
Magis is 30 years old. Until a short while ago Magis was one of the few companies that manufactured objects in plastic. Today the number has increased considerably. Still, Magis uses the most advanced molding technologies and techniques; it was the first company in the world to apply air molding to aesthetical goods.
Plastic will remain Magis' reference material, although it is now experimenting with others such as die-cast aluminum, aluminum metal sheet and wood.
Magis is a company in perfect health because it has good projects to develop as well as good intellectual capital, which is the distinguishing feature of the company. Excellent designers, a good design team and an extraordinary supply chain. Magis is characterized by the multiplicity of its expressive languages, its search for a deep meaning of the project, and its ethics instead of aesthetics.
Magis takes three/four years to turn the idea of a project into a finished product. Magis faces projects, both difficult and complex, taking high risks. Projects are completed as long as they are supported by a high spirit of experimentation and elevated technical cleverness.
Magis works with very well-known designers, but it has always been open to work with young designers, even at the outset of their careers. Jean-Marie Massaud and Jerszy Seymour made their debut on the design scene thanks to the opportunities Magis gave them. Now Magis discovers new passions and punctually chases former design glories, adding them to the mix. There was the interlude with Charlotte Perriand, and new design chapters are being written with Robin Day, a genius of English design, Eero Aarnio, a genius of Finnish design and Pierre Paulin, a genius of French design.
It is the price to pay for success. To reduce the possibility to be copied the entrance barrier needs to be elevated greatly. One will have to do complex projects with inventive loftiness and considerable engineering investments, and make moulds and equipment with high technical performance (technique is the ability of a company to make technology work). A qualitative distribution should too play an important role against copies selecting design-oriented companies and keeping me-too-oriented ones out.
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