PEWTER STOOL - MAX LAMB

Max Lamb’s chair designs suggest an aggressiveness that is characteristic of the atavistic spirit in design today. In stark contrast to recent ethereal and romanticised design, or designs that transfer directly from computer to machine manufacture without human intervention, Lamb laboriously chisels, buries, grows and smelts materials into rugged and bold forms. Combining industrial production with handcraftsmanship while fusing high and low technologies, the effect is both raw and intense. Whether carving polystyrene, casting luxurious pewter into crude sand formations on a South Cornish beach for his Pewter Stool, combining lost-wax and sophisticated electro-deposition methods for his Copper stools, or extruding biodegradable materials for his Starch stools, Lamb creates visually arresting pieces that have materials and process at their core. It represents a traditional modernist approach to design – technically rigorous with an appreciation of innovative and appropriate materials and production processes – that suggests a need for realism and honesty in the products around us. In a primitive casting technique,molten pewter is poured into a sand mould sculpted by hand on the beach.

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