If the Vegetal Chair by brothers Rowan and Erwan Bouroullec for Vitra looks familiar, it’s not because you’ve seen its ilk on this, or any other, design forum. Rife, though our world may be, with “organically inspired” pieces, as well as “indoor/outdoor” chairs (see Ami Ami and Myto), this piece by the brothers Bouroullec aspires to more than a mere imitation of natural forms or a simple utilitarian functionality.

Vegetal. Designed by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec for Vitra.

Four years in the making, Vegetal is the world’s first three-dimensional, injection molded furnishing of an intricacy to rival the progeny of Mother Nature. And this is not to discount the achievements of Michael Thonet, Alvar Aalto, Charles & Ray Eames, et. al.–innovators whose work with bentwood first incorporated the lovely curves of the organic world–but only to suggest that Vegetal represents the next stage in this conceptual evolution: “Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec are interested in another aspect of nature: nature’s growing process… drawings and models for Vegetal show a structure that grows from four branches into a network of twigs, which create a basket. The twigs support the body of the user and the openings among them allow transparency and space for the legs of a second chair to be stacked on top.”

Vegetal’s convincing mimesis thus responds to the Bouroullec’s original inspiration, the mid-20th.century practice of cultivating plants and shrubs to grow into seating: “In the 1940s an American gardener, Axel Erlandson, experimented with small trees by inosculating them, and created living chairs and architectural sculptures.” So the piece is really the inverse of this objective.

While the intricacies of the interlaced pattern of branching branches and twining twigs are planned to the most minute detail (the supportive “ribs” or “veins” on the underside buttresses recall the spidery filaments that form the structure of leaves), Vegetal yet seems entirely “natural.” Of course, it’s constructed of extruded plastic, so it’s actually anything but. And this is precisely the point and precisely the paradox: as the Bouroullecs themselves suggest, Vegetal becomes sort of an elegant affront to the natural world: “contrary to natural evolution which knows no designer (unless you disbelieve Darwin’s theory), the fact that we are designers means that we create something different from nature: artificial nature.”

“Artificial Nature”–a new coinage for a seminal moment in design. And while I suspect that most will respond enthusiastically to the evolution that Vegetal represents, there will doubtless be some who will grouse about it. But whether the piece inspires you to celebration or bemused disdain, you can’t discount the achievement: if nature were inclined to “grow” a chair, it would doubtless look like Vegetal

via Designboom