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East Galleries, 217
Frank Lloyd Wright 法蘭克‧洛伊‧萊特
'Peacock Chair' for Imperial Hotel, Tokyo, Japan 日本東京帝國酒店「孔雀椅」
circa 1921
The American architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed this oak side chair for the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo in the early 1920s. Wright’s building, which opened in 1922, replaced an 1890 structure on the same site near the Imperial Palace. Among its many well-photographed spaces was a grand banquet hall where the chairs were used, named the Peacock Room for its low-relief panels decorated with abstracted images of the bird.
The chair’s hexagonal back is partially covered in a golden oilcloth, forming a chevron that echoes the geometries of the building’s pervasive ornament. Three thin wooden supports join the back to its heavier base. The seat is a square with chamfered corners; the legs begin as thick triangles and taper as they meet the floor, reinforced and visually grounded by a secondary structure underneath. Other examples use caning rather than oilcloth.
In use, the chair joined custom fabrics, graphics, and dishware to create the Imperial’s particular identity. Like the hotel, the Peacock chair represents the internationalisation of influences in Tokyo in the early twentieth century. When the hotel was demolished in the late 1960s, many Peacock chairs entered the collections of museums worldwide.
The chair’s hexagonal back is partially covered in a golden oilcloth, forming a chevron that echoes the geometries of the building’s pervasive ornament. Three thin wooden supports join the back to its heavier base. The seat is a square with chamfered corners; the legs begin as thick triangles and taper as they meet the floor, reinforced and visually grounded by a secondary structure underneath. Other examples use caning rather than oilcloth.
In use, the chair joined custom fabrics, graphics, and dishware to create the Imperial’s particular identity. Like the hotel, the Peacock chair represents the internationalisation of influences in Tokyo in the early twentieth century. When the hotel was demolished in the late 1960s, many Peacock chairs entered the collections of museums worldwide.
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